Blue Bird of Happiness
by Ziek Aramaik
Summary: Dick Grayson wasn't allowed to tell anyone that he was Robin, Batman's sidekick. On one particular day, he began missing his family more than ever, and he decided to break the rules and tell Kid Flash everything about himself and his past... He just didn't mention the real reason why.
1. Monologue

_My name is Dick Grayson, and I have two identities. How I got them is a bit of a long story._

 _I was born in Haly's International Traveling Circus. It was a great life full of excitement - and danger - and laughter - and surprises. Always new surprises. Always new places to visit and new faces to see. I've been to more countries than I can remember. I've met different kinds of families all over the world.  
_

 _Whenever we stopped somewhere, I went into town in my free time and got to know the people. I've met so many kids over the years. I was sad to leave friends behind, but it was okay, because there were always new friends to make._

 _I had a mom and dad. I had an aunt, uncle, and cousin. We were trapeze artists - the Flying Graysons. And I thought I was the luckiest boy in the world to be born there._

 _Then when I was nine years old, a crime boss named Tony Zucco tried to threaten Mr. Haly into giving him protection money. Haly refused. And Zucco sabotaged the trapeze. And then...  
_

 _It's not just a saying - the world really does go black before your eyes during moments like that._

 _My uncle was the only one who survived, but he was paralyzed in both his arms and legs. He was sent to live in a special home, unable to take care of me. I wasn't hurt because I wasn't even in the act - I wasn't old enough to try the really big stunts with them._

 _After that, Bruce Wayne came to my rescue. When he was my age, he watched his parents got shot and killed by a mugger. I guess he saw himself in me._

 _So now, I have two identities. To the public, I'm the legal ward of Mr. Wayne, billionaire playboy turned responsible philanthropist, but that's not the real him... and it's not the real me._

 _To the criminal underworld, I'm Robin, protégé of the Batman, and training to be a crime fighter under one of the greatest in the world. The thing is... that's not the real me either._

 _The real me doesn't exist. It disappeared when I left the circus._

 _I live in Gotham City. I go to a private school. And I was fine with that at first. It was just one big change after a lifetime of changing to new environments... only it didn't change. The same streets. The same rooms at the mansion. After traveling for my whole life I was suddenly stuck in one place all the time._

 _It went on for weeks. Then months. I love fighting crime but even that started to feel like the same old thing after a while. It just drags on and on. People want me to move on with my life... but I'm not moving... and this life isn't mine._

 _I feel like a square peg shoved into a round hole. I keep trying to adjust but it's not working. Every day is the same old thing. I get up. Go to school. Everyone there only cares about the same old stuff, like being cool and fitting in._

 _I'm not normal._

 _Sometimes, I get scared that the "real me" is dead too. It died along with my family. And none of us are ever coming back..._

.

Wally and Dick sat together on the high rooftop. The night wind blew through their hair.

"Okay then. That's a lot to take in..." Wally said. He turned his head to look at Dick. "But why are you telling me this? What _exactly_ made you come see me?"

Dick didn't reply right away. He stood up, walked to the very edge of the roof, and looked over at the ground below.

"It's a long story."

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : It might seem random, but I was inspired to write this after seeing "The Space Between Us." (The critics are wrong; it's a great movie. Go watch it.) Its plot really has nothing to do with the plot of this story, but they both have the theme of being "different" in a new place.

It seems to me that Dick's past in the circus is easily overlooked. I decided to emphasize it and make it a bigger part of who he is, instead of treating it like an easy explanation for his agility. It's not a unique fanfiction, but I thought I'd enjoy examining Dick's struggles in adapting to city life. This story is another sudden experiment made by compulsion, and I'm eager for feedback.

 _ **Disclaimer**_ : This is fan-written story that uses, without permission, the likeness of "Robin," "Batman," and other characters owned by DC Comics. I make no profit by posting this story online.


	2. Insomnia

It was his first night in Wayne Manor, and Dick couldn't fall asleep.

He had a big room. The whole mansion was huge, which was ridiculous, since only two people lived there before Dick arrived. They're just wasting the house, he thought.

He was lying awake on a big fancy bed, in a dark empty room. All his worldly possessions were stuffed into two big duffel bags which sat unopened in the corner. He was technically the inheritor of his family's things too, but they were in storage somewhere. He hadn't wanted to pick through their stuff yet.

He fought the urge to toss and turn, thinking he might fall unconscious sooner if he stayed still. It's not that he wasn't tired. He was desperately sleepy, especially after all the stress he went through the last several days. It was a lot of work: the funeral, becoming Bruce's legal ward, becoming an official American citizen. But sleep just wouldn't come.

There was a digital clock on a nightstand next to his bed. He kept glancing at it and knew when the first hour had passed, then the second hour, and so on, and he regretted looking because knowing just how much sleep he was missing only made him feel worse.

He groaned and tried to figure out what was keeping him awake. It probably wasn't grief. It's not like he hadn't slept at all since the death of his family. The problem had to be this room. But it's not like the bed was uncomfortable - just the opposite. And even if it weren't, he could sleep on anything from cots to sleeping bags to Zitka's back. (Zitka was the elephant who liked Dick best.)

Maybe it was _too_ comfortable - but that wouldn't make sense either. It's not like this was his first time sleeping on a full-size mattress. He spent the night at the home of new friends before. He even stayed in a hotel once.

And it wasn't the temperature that kept him awake. It was a tiny bit chilly - consequence of a big mansion, Alfred had warned him - but he slept through much worse than this. He was used to all sorts of climates.

He thought about what the problem was. He thought about it for ages. It took him so long because it was something he never even imagined before. Something he didn't think was possible. Something he had become so used to for every minute of the day that he didn't recognize it when it changed.

This room was quiet. It was so quiet he could hear his own breath.

He never really noticed the sound of his breath before. It was always being drowned out by the sound of his parents' breathing. Or his uncle's light snoring from the next cabin. Or the sound of the train clicking against the tracks. The rustle of the big top's fabric. The crackle of a fire. People working overnight. Shuffling of feet. Mumbling in the distance. Animals stirring in their cages. He couldn't even hear any crickets chirping.

There was literally _**no noise**_ at all - except for him.

And now that Dick realized that it was starting to freak him out.

His breathing became heavy. He forced himself to hold his breath and strained his ears, desperate to find some trace of noise. His heart pounded, and once he could hear the blood rushing through his ears he threw the covers off and left the room.

Dick wandered through the mansion with a flashlight in his hand. The sound of his footsteps didn't comfort him. What he wanted to hear was some noise that didn't come from him. Someone _breathing_ , at least. The silence was creating this strange, unnamed panic inside of him. He knew it was an irrational fear, but he didn't know what he'd do if he couldn't find some relief for it and quick.

Before he arrived, this giant mansion had only two people to fill it. It was no wonder Bruce slept so little here.

It was the middle of the night. And Dick figured he wasn't allowed wake up Bruce or Alfred for something they wouldn't consider important. He avoided their rooms - or at least the directions he thought were their rooms. He hadn't memorized all the different hallways yet.

Eventually he found a room with a television. His flashlight searched over the walls for a light switch, and then he flipped it on. Dick blinked against the sudden brightness, and it didn't do much to calm him down. Next he picked up the remote, read some of the buttons, and pressed the one marked "PLAY."

Nothing happened. He tried it again. And again. He stared at the remote in confusion. It took a little more trial and error to figure out he was supposed to press the "POWER" button instead. Some type of nature documentary appeared on the screen, and a woman's voice was talking about the ever-so-fascinating biology of jellyfish.

Dick breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the sofa. He wasn't really listening to the narrator's words, but the sound of her voice and the quiet music did a lot to ease his nerves. It was just _eerie_ to have nothing to fill all that emptiness. Soon enough he stopped being so anxious and started feeling sleepy again. He decided to relax here for just a few more minutes, and then he would walk back to that room and try again to fall asleep...

.

"Richard?" Alfred shook the sleeping boy's shoulder. "Master Richard?"

Dick stirred awake. "Huh? Wha?" He realized he was lying down on the sofa. He pushed himself to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. After a few moments he could make out the blurry image of the manor's butler.

"Alfred...?" He said groggily, "Why are you up so late?"

"It's not late, sir. It's six in the morning," he answered. He picked up the remote and shut the TV off.

Dick blinked. He looked around the room. Alfred said it was morning, but everything was the way he left it last night.

He stood up. "I-I'm sorry..." He felt embarrassed, like he was caught doing something he shouldn't have been.

"I thought you were in bed. What were you doing out here?" Alfred asked.

"I-I couldn't sleep. I was looking for something to do..." He yawned. "I... I only wanted to be here for a little while. I'm sorry."

Alfred looked down at the boy, and he gave a little sigh. "Well, no harm done."

He led Dick back to the bedroom. After the boy yawned again, Alfred said, "I don't want you picking up any bad habits from Master Bruce. It's not healthy to stay up so late at night."

"I wasn't _trying_ to stay up late, Alfred," Dick said. "I just _couldn't sleep_ in that room."

Alfred thought for a moment, and then he said, "Is there a problem with the room?"

Dick looked nervous. He didn't mean to complain or sound ungrateful. "I, uh..." He decided to change the subject. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have wandered off on my own. It won't happen again."

Alfred thought for several more seconds. Then he stopped walking and put a hand on Dick's shoulder. "Richard, you don't need permission to walk through the manor. This is your _home_ now. Do you understand?"

He blinked again. And then he nodded. "Thank you."

"You mustn't be afraid of telling us when there's something wrong," Alfred said.

Dick stared at him. Slowly, he diverted his eyes to the ground. Finally, he admitted, "My room's too quiet... It was never that quiet at Haly's. Last night, I couldn't even hear anyone breathing, and I... I just _freaked out..._ It made me feel like I was the only one left in the whole world..."

He felt worse for saying it. He felt embarrassed and stupid. But Alfred didn't make him feel that way. He just looked at him kindly and said, "We'll take care of that. I promise."

He offered his hand, and Dick took it. As they walked down the hall, Dick pressed his thumb against Alfred's wrist. It was reassuring to feel someone's pulse and remind himself that he wasn't the only one who survived that night at the circus.

.

Wally stared at him on the rooftop. "I never would have guessed you were afraid of silence," he said. "You and Batman are always hiding in the shadows and sneaking up on bad guys. Isn't it sort of your _job_ to be quiet?"

"I can handle it much better now," Dick told him. "It was _much_ worse in the beginning. Besides, you don't hide unless there's someone there to hide _from_. I don't feel alone that way." He nodded to himself. "...It was easy to feel alone back then."


	3. School Day

First day at Hans Christian Andersen Private Elementary School.

As Dick rode in the limousine he asked, "So how come it's called the Andersen school?"

Alfred gave a little shrug from the driver's seat and replied, "I suppose because whoever chose the name liked Andersen's stories."

"It's a weird name for a school here, don't you think?" Dick said.

"Oh, I don't think so. It's as good a name as any," Alfred said. "Illustrious school. Illustrious literary figure."

"But he was Danish," Dick said.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "...So?"

"So why is an American school named after a Danish writer? Are there Danish schools named after American writers?"

Alfred thought for several seconds. "That's a good question actually. I might have to look that up."

The limousine pulled up outside the school gates. Alfred was going to open the car door for Dick, but the boy opened it himself. Dick felt silly when the butler kept doing things he was perfectly capable of doing himself, even if it was part of his job. He grabbed his bag and stepped out of the black car, standing straight in his fancy uniform that was almost a suit. He pulled at his necktie again - couldn't quite get it comfortable enough.

Many children in identical uniforms left fancy cars and walked down the concrete path towards the giant brick building. Dick studied the area, trying to take in as much detail as he could.

Alfred stood next to him. "I realize how children dread going back to school, but I'll say it anyway: Try to enjoy yourself, Richard."

"I'm actually looking forward to this, Alfred," he replied. "I always like seeing new places."

"Richard Grayson?"

A blond boy standing by the school gates maneuvered through the students towards Dick and Alfred. "Are you Richard Grayson?" He held his hand out.

He shook it. "Yes, that's me."

"I'm Travis Nie," the blond boy said with a smile. "They asked me to be your student liason."

"I believe the word is 'liaison'," Alfred mentioned.

The boy had a polite expression up to now, but he dropped it and shot Alfred a look that said he was irritated to be corrected. Alfred recognized it as the "I'm training to be a teenager" look.

He took it as his cue to leave. "All right then." He looked down at Dick. "Remember, be friendly and listen to the teachers."

He nodded. "I know."

"I'll be waiting here once you're finished." He nodded at Travis. "Good day."

Alfred re-entered the limousine. Before he even pulled away, Travis tugged at Dick's sleeve. "C'mon, let's go," he tilted his head to the building and walked off.

Dick caught up in two strides and matched pace at his side. "What are you - that liaison thing - what's that mean?"

"The faculty told me you'd be here today," Travis explained as they walked, "and we have all the same classes, so they asked me to show you around. Basically I'm just gonna pal around with you and help you understand everything."

"What, like... an interpreter?" Dick was a little offended by that. "I speak plenty of English."

"I just meant I'm gonna help you get used to the school. They said you were home schooled before, right?"

"Yes." He pulled at his necktie again.

"Well, private school can be a little different."

They reached the front doors of the main building. Dick thought it was a large and impressive structure. But his opinion changed a little when he followed Travis inside.

They came to a narrow hallway. Green metal doors filled both sides of the corridor. Rectangular lights hung from the low ceiling. A crowd of students rushed in different directions, chatting and gossiping about things Dick couldn't quite make out. He looked around uncomfortably.

As he walked Travis said, "You have your locker number and combination, right? It should be written on one of your papers. Did you bring every-" He looked but Dick wasn't at his side. He spun around and tried to spot Dick's face among all the people. The black-haired boy was still at the start of the hallway, trying to avoid the kids rushing past him.

Travis walked back to him and asked, "What wrong?"

"Are all private schools like this?" Dick asked with a confused expression.

Travis looked around and shrugged. "Like... what?"

A girl bumped against Dick's shoulder as she passed him. "...Smaller on the inside." He felt like he walked into a circus tent and appeared inside a train cabin.

"What's _that_ mean? You know what, never mind. Just follow me." He grabbed Dick's wrist and pulled him along.

"The building was so big outside, I expected the rooms to be bigger," Dick said. "Like at Wayne Manor."

"This isn't small. This is normal."

Dick would be hearing "this is normal" a lot the next few days.

They found his locker, and the paper in his bag with the combination. As Dick opened the lock he asked, "What's this for, exactly?"

"For your books," Travis answered. "You put them here and come back between each class, so you're not carrying a big heavy bag all day."

It made more sense than a few of the things Dick heard that day. He put all his things into the locker except what he needed for the very next class. He closed the door and told Travis, "Okay, let's go to class."

"You forgot to lock it," he pointed out.

"Why do I need to I lock it?"

"Obviously, to make sure no one steals your stuff."

"Why would anyone steal my stuff?"

Travis stared at him for several seconds. Then, "Are you from another planet?!"

"No, just Europe."

He rolled his eyes. "May as well be another planet," he mumbled.

Dick wasn't sure how to react to that. He turned back to his locker and clicked the lock closed.

"Spin it three times. That resets it," Travis said.

Dick silently moved the dial all the way around three times. As Travis watched him, he gently said, "You're Bruce Wayne's kid, right?"

"I'm not his kid. I'm his ward," Dick answered without looking at him.

"Yeah, but he's paying for all your stuff, right? So I guess it'd be no big deal if you needed to get new books."

"I guess." He finished with the lock.

"You're lucky to have all that money," Travis said quietly. "I'm here on scholarship."

Dick looked back at him. "What's that?"

"You don't know what a scholarship is?"

"No."

He seemed a little embarrassed when he said, "It means I'm only able to be here because the school's paying for it. My parents can't afford tuition for a high class place like this."

Dick thought about this. "So my guardian pays for me to be here, but your family gets it for free. So why am I the one that's lucky?"

Travis stared at him silently - which was beginning to be a habit. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a little weird?"

"Why do you think I'm weird?"

He looked away and tilted his head in a half-shrug motion. "Oh, no reason..."

.

In an empty alleyway, where Dick couldn't see him, Wally took a prescription bottle out of his pocket and popped one pill into his mouth. He hid the bottle deep in his pocket, where no one would notice it.

Wally picked up his large paper bag and climbed up the fire escape. It was getting dark, but he still wanted to avoid using his super speed out of costume. Dick was patiently waiting for him on the top of the building.

"Okay, I'm back," Wally called out cheerfully. He sat crossed-legged, and pulled two sodas and four burgers out of the paper bag. He held one burger out towards Dick and said, "You sure you don't want anything?"

"I'm still full, thanks," Dick said.

"Heh. Full. What's that like?" Wally smirked to himself as he unwrapped his food.

"So where was I?"

"It's your first day of school and student liaison was a jerk."

"He wasn't a jerk."

"He was sort of a jerk."

"He got better." Dick said, "It's just, like, we were set to totally different wavelengths and we didn't even know it... That was an ongoing problem for me."

.

Nine-year-old Dick stood next to the teacher's desk and faced the class.

"Everyone, this is Richard Grayson," the teacher said. "He's transferring to our school starting today."

Dick put on a big smile and said, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen."

A few kids snickered. He didn't get the joke, but he smiled with them.

"Now, what would you like us to call you?" the teacher asked him. "Do you prefer Richard, or Richie, or...?"

"I like Dick," he answered.

A few kids snickered again. Dick realized this is what the clowns used to call an easy crowd: they'd laugh at anything.

The teacher silenced them with a look, and then told Dick, "Take your seat next to Travis."

Dick sat down and listened to the teacher begin the lesson. Once his back was turned to the blackboard, Travis leaned over and whispered, "'Ladies and gentlemen'? Were you trying to be formal or funny?"

Confused, Dick whispered back, "That's what you always say to a new crowd."

"Not to your classmates. Not around here anyway," Travis whispered.

"I couldn't say 'boys and girls of all ages.' They're all the same age," Dick whispered.

"Dick, Travis, no chatting in class," the teacher told them.

The boys straightened up in their seats. "Sorry," Travis said.

The teacher continued the lecture. Dick listened diligently for a few minutes, but then he was distracted by something near the window. On top of a shelf was a plastic tank with a little animal moving around inside. He casually stood up and walked over to the window.

"Dick," the teacher called. "What are you doing?"

"Don't worry, I'm still listening. I just wanted to see this," he replied.

"Please return to your seat."

He blinked. "Why?"

The class laughed.

The teacher's patience was limited, but he calmly replied, "Mr. Grayson, you're supposed to remain at your desk for the duration of class. It's the rules."

"Okay..." No one warned Dick about that. He walked back to his desk. "Sorry, I just wanted to know what that was." He pointed to the plastic tank.

"That's Trixie," the teacher answered. "She's the class pet."

"But what is she?" Dick asked.

The teacher made a little shrug. "She's just the class pet. The students take care of her and they take turns bringing her home over the weekend."

"No, I mean _what_ is she? What kind of animal is that?"

This prompted even more laughter from the students. "I'm not being funny, I want to know," Dick told them uncomfortably.

"Haven't you ever seen a hamster before?" a girl asked him.

He shook his head. "No... But I never looked for one either."

More snickering. Dick was starting to feel really uneasy about all this random laughter.

"Everybody, settle down," the teacher ordered.

Travis leaned over again and whispered, "You're a regular class clown, aren't you?"

Still confused, Dick whispered back, "I was never a clown. I was an acrobat."

Travis stared for a moment, then he turned his head away, dreading what would happen if people started associating him with this kid.

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 2/20/2017) It would seem silly for _every_ school in the city to be named Gotham-something, so I gave it an actual name. Having second thoughts on how right Dick's fish-out-of-water-ness seems. Still eager for feedback.


	4. Classmates

After class, several kids gathered around Dick's desk, asking the new kid questions. Dick was used to it. He was always the new kid.

Wherever the circus came to town, Dick tried making friends with the children there. He spoke with spectators after the show. In his free time he would go into town and get to know the people there.

Language was the biggest problem - he only knew so many - his older cousin knew a little more and would sometimes act as interpreter. But that wouldn't be a problem here since everyone in the state spoke English, and English was Dick's best language after Romanian. It was hard to learn, though - Dick could never understand why it was so popular.

Anyway, Dick was looking forward to the typical question-and-answer session. "What's it like living in the circus?" "What tricks can you do?" "You're so lucky to travel around so much." Dick enjoyed impressing the new kids and feeling special, and then running off to play games with them.

Today he was having the discussion in a private school classroom. He pulled at his uncomfortable necktie again.

"You used to live in a circus?!"

He nodded and smiled. "Yes, I did."

Travis looked away and mumbled, "That would explain a few things..."

"No way!" The other kids laughed. "You're putting us on."

"No, it's true," Dick insisted. "I was born in a family of acrobats."

"You mean it? No joke?"

"Yes, I'm from Haly's International Traveling Circus. Why is that hard to believe?"

As soon as Dick asked that, he realized why. For the very first time, Dick Grayson was in town, but the circus was not.

"If you're some kind of acrobat, prove it," some kid said with a smirk. Dick would probably need to learn their names at some point. "Do some tricks."

"Okay, I will," Dick casually replied.

That answer surprised them. Dick stood up from his desk. "Give me room," he told them. He worked best on a trapeze, but he could do some simple tricks on his own. The space between the rows of desks was a little narrow, but it would work.

Travis spoke up concernedly. "Uh, Dick? What are you-"

He ran away from them and did a somersault - then another - Dick jumped from his hands to his feet and to his hands again. He pushed himself into the air and flipped over, landing perfectly on his feet. He spun to face the group with his arms raised high and proud.

"Whoa!" Several kids clapped their hands. "Do it again!" Everyone in the room had noticed him - the people who weren't interested in the new kid before moved together until the class was one big crowd. "Do another!"

Dick grinned, and he did a back flip. Jumped backwards and flipped in the air, landing on his feet.

More applause. Dick beamed brightly as he walked back to them. _This_ is what he was used to. Showing off for some new friends. This was familiar.

"You weren't kidding, were you? You were _actually_ in a circus!"

"Yes," he nodded, not even out of breath. "I traveled all over the world."

"Is that why you have an accent?" someone asked.

Dick blinked. "I have an accent?"

"You have a _little_ accent. Where were you born?"

"Uh, I think it was España - I mean Spain."

"Oh, so you're Spanish?"

"No, I'm Romani."

"You _just said_ you were born in Spain."

"But my family's from Romania. They just happened to be in Spain when I was born."

"You really do travel around a lot. I guess that explains why you seemed a little off in class."

Dick blinked again. "Off? Off what?"

"Y'know. Just a little 'off'."

He stared in confusion. "...I don't understand."

Travis leaned over to Dick and whispered, "Just ignore him."

Before Dick could decide what to do, another kid asked, "So your parents were really acrobats in a circus? And now you all live in Gotham?"

For a very brief moment, Dick froze. Then he lowered his eyes. "Uh, n-no... It's just me... My parents are dead."

Nobody laughed.

"My aunt and cousin too. My uncle's the only one who's alive, but he's still in the hospital."

"I'm so sorry..."

Dick looked back up in confusion. "Why does everyone keep saying sorry? It's not your fault. It was a man named Tony Zucco. He killed them," he said simply. "He's the one who should be sorry."

The group looked uncomfortable.

One kid tried to change the subject. "S-So, who are you staying with now?"

"A man named Bruce Wayne."

"Really?!" almost everyone cried.

Dick stared back wide-eyed. "Yeah. Do you know him?"

"Everyone knows him. He's the richest man in the city."

"I think I heard something about him adopting a kid. That was you?!"

"He didn't adopt me, really," Dick replied. "I'm not his son, just his ward. I'm just living with him."

"But still, that's incredible!" one kid said.

"You're so lucky!" another kid cried.

Dick nodded eagerly. "Yes, I know. I couldn't stay with Mr. Haly anymore, so I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for Bruce."

"You call him Bruce?"

"That's his name."

She laughed, as if Dick said something funny.

"What I meant is that one of the richest men in the world asked you to live with him. That's as lucky as you can get. That is hitting the jackpot!"

"Like Little Orphan Annie," someone said with a grin.

"Who?" Dick asked, which just prompted more laughs.

"How did that happen? How did you get him to take you in?"

"I didn't do anything, it's just... Bruce said that when he was my age, his parents were killed too. He said he knew what I was going through and he wanted to help. I had no place to go, so he offered to take me in, and I said yes."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah, just like that."

"Of course it was just like that," another kid said with a smirk. "Like he was gonna say no to someone with all that money."

Dick smiled and shook his head. "I didn't know Bruce was rich back then. Well, I sort of knew, but it didn't really sink in. I didn't really know anything about him." He blinked. "I still don't." His smile faded and he stared. "But I said yes anyway... Didn't even think about it... I went with a total stranger..."

Dick blinked back to awareness and grinned. "W-Well, I didn't have a lot of choices, so lucky me!"

Before any of them could say anything else, the teacher came back into the classroom. "All right, everybody back to your seats."

Dick sat down, and tried to force away the sudden discomfort inside him.

.

Over the next few days at school, Dick noticed something strange. People seemed more interested in his being Bruce Wayne's ward than by his being from the circus. He didn't understand the big deal since - as far as anyone else knew - Bruce Wayne was just an ordinary person. Except he had money.

"I don't get it," Dick told Travis. "So he has lots of money. So what?"

"Dude, don't be a snob. You won't make any friends that way," Travis told him.

"What's snob mean?"

"It means..." He shrugged. "Well, you know... It means you're a snob."

"That's not explaining."

"Dick, a lot of kids in this school are already rich. They have to be to afford this place. But _you_ are richer than all of them. If you can have all that money and not be impressed by it, people will think you're a snob."

"I know money is important. We had bills in the circus too, you know. But everyone acts like it's the most amazing thing in the world. And it's not my money, anyway. It's Bruce's."

"It's yours too because you're his son now - Sorry, his ward," Travis added with a roll of his eyes, before Dick could correct him again. "And they think it's amazing because you can buy _anything_ and they can't. You can have all the newest phones, and games, and - and dirt bikes, and jet skis, and whatever."

"I don't _want_ all that stuff," Dick said. "Why would I? I'd hate having to pack all that up."

Travis looked at him quizzically. "Pack up? Pack for what?"

Dick froze. Then he blinked. "Uh... Nothing, I guess."

In the beginning, Dick sometimes forgot that living with Bruce wasn't temporary - that he wouldn't be moving to another country in a few weeks.

"Look, the point is," Travis said, "money is a big deal. It just is. Maybe not in the circus, but that's just how it works here in civilization."

"Civilization?!" A hot flare of anger appeared inside Dick. "I was raised by traveling performers, not _wolves_! I'm just as civilized as anyone else!"

"You were _scared_ by the automatic hand-dryers in the bathroom," Travis deadpanned.

"Don't change the subject!"

Travis rolled his eyes dismissively and walked off. Dick thought about hitting him, but feared he would twist it to fit his argument.

.

Dick never thought he wasn't normal before.

Well... not _exactly_.

He knew not everyone lived in a circus. He knew most kids stayed in one city all the time, didn't learn special tricks, and had never been around animals any bigger than a dog or a horse.

He knew there were all sorts of families in the world.

He _thought_ he knew that.

Dick thought that traveling to so many places meant he knew more about the world. He never thought he was sheltered... but maybe he was wrong.

He was always drifting from place to place. He never really dug in deep anywhere. Never really got involved. Maybe he never learned anything...

He thought families were different all over the world. Some were stationary, some were travelers.

Dick was always an outsider. He thought he was used to it. But after spending a few weeks in a private school... This felt _different_. A different kind of different. There was this strange feeling in the air. Spending so much time around these people gradually made something about the atmosphere oppressive. It took Dick a while to understand what it was.

Growing up, Dick was told the United States of America was "the land of the free." It was a country that took such pride in "Capitalism" and "free speech" and "human rights". Dick used to think of it as a place where each individual was encouraged to act however they wanted... But the only thing his schoolmates wanted to do was act like everyone else.

The kids acted so high and mighty, but all they cared about was getting the newest phone or following the latest trends. It made Dick think of "The Emperor's New Clothes." He would have expected students in a school named after Andersen to understand the moral. (Dick knew about Hans Christian Andersen. One of his few material possessions was a book of his stories, translated into Romanian. He remembered his mom reading it to him.)

Before, Dick thought kids who didn't live in a circus were _common_. Here, people thought it was _normal_. And there was a difference. "Normal" was this invisible yet omnipresent concept that was either "pass" or "fail," no room in between. And everybody desperately wanted to avoid failing. Dick didn't understand why people worried about it - and that not-understanding was the exact thing that made people call him weird... and after a while it got under his skin.

He was simply that rich foreign kid who tried to impress people with tricks, and for a while it sort of worked. But after a few weeks Dick Grayson wasn't the New Thing anymore, and people looked for something else to entertain themselves.

Same faces, same crowds. There was suddenly a point in remembering people's names now. And they got used to him. Dick realized he didn't know how to make people like him after he stopped being new and interesting, because he never stayed in one spot long enough for it to happen.

When he was still the New Thing, Dick overheard some kids talking about him. He stayed hidden behind the corner to listen.

"That guy must be the luckiest kid in the world. Who else gets adopted by a _billionaire_?!"

"He lost his parents, so there is that."

"So what? I'd trade my folks for a billion dollars anytime."

Dick's mouth dropped open.

 _Who says things like that?! Is that how "normal" people think?!_

Dick decided then that he didn't belong in this place. He would be an outsider no matter how long he stayed. But he wasn't traveling anymore... So he had no choice but to live with it.

...Just keep living with it.

.

"This is all very interesting," Wally spoke up. "But it doesn't really answer my question."

"What question?" Dick asked.

Wally looked in his eyes and asked, "Why did you want to meet me today?"

Dick hesitated, then he made a careless shrug and said, "I just did."

"No, seriously. You hid your identity from me for more than a year - Which I totally respected. I'm not mad - But today you decided to break Batman's rules, came all the way to Central City, popped up in front of me, and now you're telling me your life story. What brought that on?"

"Nothing really. I've been thinking about telling you who I am for a while," Dick answered. "Today seemed like as good a day as any."

"Is that the only reason?" Wally asked.

Dick hesitated again, and he said, "Does it matter...?"

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 2/28/2017) In mainstream DC Comics, Haly's Circus is a US circus and Dick was always American. But I read somewhere that the Young Justice version of Dick was Romani. I'm not sure how official that is (Grayson doesn't sound like a Romanian name), but I just went with it.


	5. Night Life

Skipping ahead a little. Dick learned Bruce's secret, then became Robin. You already know that part.

Moving on. On one particular night, Robin got captured. So... Yeah... That sucked.

Robin stood in an elevator with an armed goon on each side of him. They were the picturesque definition of armed goons: Black suits, black sunglasses, shaved heads. It's like they were being cliché on purpose. They looked sort of like the Secret Service except their expressions were meaner and they had guns. Thinking of it: the Secret Service had guns too, but they hid them in their vests while these two were pointing them at Robin.

He was distracting himself; he stopped thinking about it.

He and Batman were tracking down Rupert Thorne, one of Gotham's better-known crime bosses. Tonight Thorne was trying to buy a shipment of high-tech weapons, only to turn around and sell them at a high profit tomorrow night. They stopped tonight's deal but during the fight Robin stupidly got himself captured. Batman was going to lecture him about it later... as soon as he escaped.

They took away Robin's utility belt so he didn't know how he was going to escape yet... He was still working on that part of the plan.

 _Talk fast, think faster, and don't let yourself get scared_ , he told himself.

One of the goons reached towards Robin's face. He tried to take off the black domino mask, but once he touched the fabric an electric shock zapped his fingers away. "Ow!"

Robin shook his head. "It looks like a simple mask, but trust me. It's not," he said with a smirk. "Even if you do get it off - which you won't, trust me - you'd need facial recognition software to identify me. Just save yourself the hassle."

 _Talk fast and bluff like there's no tomorrow_.

 _On second thought "no tomorrow" is a really bad expression right now_.

The elevator opened. They stepped out into Rupert Thorne's office. It was a lavishly decorated penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows; one-way glass, Robin guessed. Thorne stood in front of his desk, smiling smugly at Robin, with two more goons at his side. Robin was roughly pushed into a basic metal chair, the least-expensive piece of furniture in the room. The four goons surrounded him, aiming their guns at Robin.

"Well," Thorne said in an oily voice, "this certainly makes up for losing that weapons shipment. The Bat's baby boy, right here in my clutches, ready for interrogation."

"Clutches?" Robin repeated. "Who says 'clutches'? You guys really _are_ being cliché on purpose, aren't you? And another thing," he looked around at the gunmen, "you don't _surround_ the person you want to shoot. You end up shooting each other that way. Rookie mistake. I'm ten years old, I've never even held a gun. How do you know less about using them than me?"

Thorne picked something up from his desk: Robin's utility belt. He made a show of tapping one of the compartments, which produced another electric shock.

"Question one," Thorne said. "How do you open this?"

"There's a trick to it," Robin answered. "Want me to show you?" He reached his hand out with a big smile.

Nobody moved.

Robin pulled his hand back. "Yeah, didn't think so."

"You're awfully cocky considering I'm holding your life in my hand," Thorne said as he put the belt back on the desk.

"I'm not scared of you," he lied very convincingly. "And I'm not dead yet."

"Of course not, you're an asset. I don't discard assets until I use them up first," Thorne said with a cold smile. "How soon and how _painful_ that will be is entirely up to you."

Robin didn't react. He didn't allow any emotion to show through his mask.

"Now... Who is Batman?"

 _Stall for time. Stall for time_.

"...My mentor."

"You know what I mean. What is Batman's real name? I know you don't want to sell out your daddy," Thorne said with mock sympathy, "but I'm sure he'll understand since your life is on the line."

"Batman's not my dad," he blurted out. "Common mistake. He's actually a future version of _me_ who came here by accidental time travel. That's how he has all these fancy gadgets. They're cheap in the future, you can get 'em anywhere. It's also why he allows a little kid like me to fight crime. Since I'm a young version of him, he knows I have what it takes."

Robin grinned at Thorne. "Now here's the question: Am I bluffing to protect his real identity? Or am I sarcastically telling the truth so that, even if you find out later, you wouldn't believe it? Could be either, couldn't it? That's the trouble when you interrogate liars. You don't have a lot of practice with that, do you Thorne? You shouldn't have asked me for Batman's identity. You _should_ have asked me for _proof_ of Batman's identity."

Thorne silently glared at him. "All right..." he said quietly. "Do you have proof of Batman's identity?"

"Like what? A driver's license?"

"Like his name," he growled. "Something I can check up on."

"Why should I tell you his name?"

"Because if you don't, you'll die," Thorne said through grit teeth.

Robin stopped smiling. "...What did you say?"

"You. Will. Die."

Robin stared at his captor.

Then he looked around the room. He mentally measured the distance to his belt on the desk - blocked by Thorne - no chance of snatching that in time. Measured the distance to the window at his side. Kept track of the position of the goons and the gaps between them. Subtly pushed against the chair, testing its weight.

 _Here we go. Guess there's only one thing left to do. It's extremely risky. It won't always work. But I can't see any other way out of this..._

 _I'll have to call his bluff._

Robin calmly stood out of the chair. "No I won't."

That actually got a laugh out of Thorne. "Say what?"

"You won't kill me."

"And why do you think I'd hesitate for one instant to shoot you?" Thorne asked with a sneer. "Because I'm so nice and trustworthy?"

"You said it yourself. I'm an asset. You won't get rid of me until you've used me up first."

Thorne didn't respond and didn't smile.

The gunmen were still aiming at Robin, but hadn't moved yet. Robin looked at them and raised his arms dramatically. "Come on! Think about it! I'm Robin, the partner of Batman! I'm a _gold mine_ of information! I'm the _only one_ in the world who knows his name, his address, the location of the Batcave, how his gadgets work, and all his secret weaknesses. I am the best chance you will _ever_ have of defeating your greatest enemy once and for all!"

He scrunched his eyebrows skeptically. "And you're just gonna kill me the first time I say no to you? Yeah, right."

The goons wouldn't shoot without orders. Of course they wouldn't - Robin planted the fear of shooting each other in their heads. And now he reminded them how valuable he was alive.

But Rupert Thorne didn't show any signs of intimidation. "So you think I _can't_ kill you because you're too important? Well you're wrong. I am the one with all the power here, and if you make me angry, your life is over like _that,_ " he snapped his fingers.

"Boys!" he called. The goons re-aimed their guns aggressively.

Robin spun around and picked up the metal chair. It wasn't extremely heavy, and he was strong for his age. He held the chair out defensively like a lion tamer.

That got another laugh out of Thorne. "A _chair_ against four armed men with guns? What are you gonna do with that?"

"You act like you want me dead," Robin said. "You know what I say to that?"

He turned and heaved the chair with all his strength towards the window. It shattered the glass with a loud and satisfying " _CRASH!_ "

Robin looked at the shocked Thorne and yelled, "PROVE IT!"

He marched towards the skyscraper's broken window. Without his utility belt and grappling hook, certain death was one step outside that opening.

 _Leap, and a net will appear_.

Thorne recovered from his surprise and cried, "GRAB HIM!"

The closest thug dropped his gun and lunged at Robin. He snatched onto the end of his cape and pulled the boy back. Robin loved the cape, but admitted that it was really impractical sometimes. Though he didn't complain now because what happened was exactly what he wanted.

The thug held tightly onto the boy's shoulders and kept him still. Thorne glared. Robin grinned.

"You said you have all the power, but I'm the one who's really indispensable! You know what 'indispensable' means, right? It means I _can't_ be dispended - dispensed - one of them. Am I talking too fast? It's the adrenaline. The point is... threatening to kill me won't work now that you _stopped_ me from dying."

Thorne looked furious, but kept his tone even. "All right. Fine. I don't need to kill you. I have other ways of making you talk."

"Like what? Torture? I'll go through torture for _days_ before I give up the information that's keeping me alive. But you don't have days, do you? You think Batman's taking a nap somewhere? He is tearing this city apart looking for me. It's only a matter of time before he figures out which building you took me to."

Robin pulled away from the goon's grip. "Everyone knows Batman has a no-kill rule. I don't think anything would ever make him break it. But I also think nothing would tempt him more than you torturing me for a few days. Ask yourself: How angry do you want to make the World's Greatest Detective?"

Thorne's face betrayed no reaction, but his men were starting to look uncomfortable.

Robin continued. "So. Killing me won't make me talk. And torturing me won't make me talk... Your best bet is to bribe me."

"Bribe you?" Thorne repeated incredulously.

"Sure, why not?" He grinned and pointed dramatically at Thorne. "Try it! Ask me what I want!"

"I don't give a damn what you want."

"You don't have a choice, because you're not getting what you want otherwise. You're racing against the clock. You need a way to learn Batman's secret identity before he finds us. Me? I'm in no hurry. I'm just trying to stop you from killing me and I have - literally - the rest of my life for that. So start negotiating!"

 _Come on, come on. Hurry up. Of all days to be slow..._

"I won't negotiate with a damn brat," Thorne said.

"I have an idea. We'll trade the information," Robin said cheerfully. "If you answer my questions, maybe I'll answer yours. That's fair, right? Okay, uh... Who were you going to sell the weapons to? When and where were you meeting them? Telling me that is your best chance at making me talk."

"I'm not telling you anything."

Robin turned his head away and crossed his arms. "Well, then, you might as well throw me out that window, because I'm not saying another word until you tell me."

Thorne scowled at him. He waved his hand, and the four goons aimed their guns at Robin.

He waited for Robin to crack, but the Boy Wonder just stood there with his arms crossed. He didn't even flinch.

They both waited.

 _Please, please, let this work_...

Eventually, Thorne waved his hand again, and the goons lowered their guns. With a frustrated expression he calmly said, "I was selling them to Black Mask. We were going to meet at pier number nine at eleven-fifteen tomorrow night."

 _SCORE!_

"Now give me Batman's name. You said we'd trade information."

"Hold on, I don't think it's an even trade yet," Robin said. "Maybe you should tell me something more first."

"Enough!" Thorne shouted. His face was so red the color was starting to spread to his white hair. "Let's get one thing straight. I only kept you alive because I thought I could use you. But if you _never_ talk, then I can't really use you, can I?"

Robin frowned. Thorne had a terrifyingly good point.

"So prove yourself useful, or die - this time for real!"

 _I guess I lost my net. I... I'm all out of ideas._

But an instant later Robin noticed something important in the corner of his eye. He had bought enough time.

He turned his head back towards Thorne. "Okay, I'll tell you his name. But I'll tell you something else first: The _real_ reason I broke that window... I was never really going to jump out."

He whispered, "...It was to let Batman know which floor we're on."

Thorne's eyes widened.

His goons spun towards the window an instant after Batman came through. Batman threw a smoke bomb on the ground in the center of the crowd, where Robin was standing an instant before he jumped away. The gunmen couldn't see and wouldn't risk shooting each other, but Batman was an expert at fighting in the dark.

Meanwhile Thorne tried running away. He turned towards his desk, but Robin sprinted around him and leaped up onto it. Robin grabbed his utility belt, pressed a button, and threw it towards Thorne. "Don't catch this!"

Thorne grabbed the belt out of the air, and a powerful electric shock ran through him. "AAH!" He dropped the belt and fell unconscious on the floor.

"Hey, I warned you," Robin smirked.

.

The Batmobile drove into its parking spot inside the Batcave. Batman silently stepped out, and Robin followed him.

"You're extra quiet tonight," Robin said.

Batman didn't reply. He just walked ahead.

"Are you mad or something?"

Robin ran in front of him and blocked his way. "C'mon, I did good tonight."

Batman stared down at him.

"Well, I did!" Robin told him. "I made the best of a bad situation. I still had my earpiece, so you could hear most of what happened, right? I bought time, and made them nervous. And I got information out of Thorne! Because of _me_ , we know when and where Black Mask is coming out of hiding. Admit it, I did great!"

Batman pulled off his cowl; he became Bruce Wayne again. "You got captured," he said bluntly.

"What, like, that's never happened to you?" He took his own mask off; he became Dick Grayson again. "Yeah, okay, you can always rescue yourself, but still. And you know what? If _not_ getting captured is good, why didn't you praise me on all the days it didn't happen?"

He waited for an answer. He didn't get one.

"Even after all your years and years of training, you still get in trouble sometimes. I've only been doing this for a few months, but I am great at it!" Dick said. "Why can't you just say it? I am a good crime fighter!"

"You're an _excellent_ crime fighter, Dick," Bruce said. "That's not a good thing."

Dick blinked. Bruce walked away from him, towards the computer.

Dick followed him after a moment. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Bruce didn't look at him. He sighed and said, "This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. I only trained you because I was afraid that if you didn't catch Tony Zucco, you would feel a need for revenge that would never go away. I hoped bringing him to justice would give you closure. I hoped you'd stop being Robin after that."

"I didn't want to stop. I still don't."

Bruce turned to look down at him and sternly said, "That's not normal, Dick."

Dick winced. After what he went through at school... did Bruce not know how those words made him feel?

"It's my own fault. I got carried away and didn't stop you when I should have. This," Bruce gestured around the Batcave, "is _my_ life. It wasn't supposed to take over yours. You were supposed to move on, but you're not... I probably shouldn't have made you Robin in the first place..."

Dick was dumbstruck. "Bruce, you didn't 'make' me Robin. You didn't tell me you were Batman - I _found out_. _I_ got involved in crime fighting. It was _both_ our decision."

"Maybe, but I am enabling you. And I'm not going to do that anymore."

Dick stared at him. The dumbstruck feeling just kept getting worse. "Are... Are you _firing_ me?"

Bruce sternly stared back. "I am forbidding you from being a vigilante."

Dick blinked. He smiled humorlessly and shook his head. "You can't do that."

"I make the rules, not you," Bruce replied.

"No, you _can't_ do that. You _can't_!" he shouted. "You can't teach me these things and then... then... shut me off like a machine just because I got captured one time!"

"This isn't because you were captured. It's because you're getting too much like me."

That shocked Dick into silence.

Bruce sighed in frustration, and then he said, "Stopping criminals isn't a game for me, Dick. It's an obsession. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. You deserve better than to have your life swept up by my vendetta... But you're never going to have a regular life if you keep being Batman's partner."

Dick thought about everything Bruce said. "So..." He forced his eyes not to water. "You're kicking me out...? You're just gonna dump me on some other foster parent?"

Bruce's expression softened the tiniest bit. "I would never kick you out."

He laughed humorlessly. "You're gonna have to! You said it yourself. This," he gestured to the cave around them, "is your life! So I can't be a part of your life if I'm not part of this. That's exactly how I found out your secret, Bruce. I got too close!"

The boy scowled at him. "So if you're gonna cut me out of your life, then you have no choice but to go all the way. Because if there's one thing I learned tonight... it's that threats don't work unless you follow through!"

He turned around and marched away.

.

Dick, in his regular clothes, was packing things in his bedroom. He didn't have a lot. He owned several new items since becoming Bruce's ward, but he didn't consider most of them important enough to bring.

He would run away, try to get back into foster care. Social services would have to pay attention to him if he just ran away enough times. A part of Dick was looking forward to the change. Living in the same place for nearly a year was starting to make him uneasy. But it was only a small part... Most of him didn't really want to leave.

But there was no point in staying here if he couldn't be Robin.

Bruce, in his regular clothes, appeared in the open doorway. "Can we talk?" he asked gently.

Dick rolled his eyes and put his duffel bag on the floor. "It's your house."

Bruce walked into the room. "I've made some mistakes, Dick. Maybe it's too late to fix them, but I should at least start admitting them." He looked Dick in the eyes and said, "...I can't replace your father."

"I never wanted you to!" he cried out.

"I know," he nodded. "But I wanted to. That was the mistake."

Dick didn't know how to react to that.

"When your family died, I saw myself in you," Bruce said. "I saw too much of myself. I was _so_ convinced that you would go down the same path I did. What I really wanted was to take your pain away... I'm just now starting to realize that probably wasn't possible... I can't take away your grief but I should at least keep you safe."

"I am safe," he said. "You taught me how to fight and defend myself."

"You should have a normal life."

"Why?!" Dick asked him. "I never had one before."

Bruce blinked.

"Bruce, I was raised in a circus. Did you _forget_ that? I used to fly over a trapeze without a net. I risked my life for a living - And I don't mean for money. It wasn't a job. It was my _life_. And that was okay... Don't you get it, Bruce...? I was _never_ going to have a normal life. I just wasn't. I wasn't _trying_ to."

"Okay," he nodded. "But that doesn't mean you need to be a vigilante."

"Why can't I? What's the point of doing anything else?"

"See, _that's_ what I was trying to avoid," he pointed at Dick. "'What's the point of any other life?' That's the type of single-mindedness I wanted to discourage."

"No, I didn't mean it like that," Dick pleaded. "Don't twist my words! I'm not _you_ , Bruce!"

That made Bruce momentarily speechless.

Dick continued. "I'm not the same as you. I'm not the same as _anyone_. Yes, we both lost our families. And, yeah, I miss them. And I-" He stuttered. "-I hate it. And I get angry. And - But - But stop treating me like an exact copy of you. I'm not doing this because I'm 'obsessed' or 'revenge' or whatever. I want to keep being Robin because I _love_ it! I love doing these dangerous, exciting, amazing things. I love saving people and learning all these skills and techniques. I love all of it... So don't take it away... Please."

Bruce was quiet for a long time, thinking carefully about what Dick said. Eventually he nodded and said, "Okay."

Dick stared at him expectantly. "O-Okay? Okay, as in...?"

"I'll keep training you, for now," Bruce said. "I won't make you quit."

"And... I can still live with you, right?"

Bruce smiled and shook his head. "That was never in any doubt."

Dick walked over and hugged him. "Thank you."

Even after having a child for nearly a year, Bruce wasn't really a hugger. But after the briefest of hesitation he put his arms around Dick anyway.

They stepped away, and Bruce looked at the bags on the floor. "Do you want any help unpacking?"

Dick paused. "Uh... Actually..." He felt a little embarrassed to ask since he was so lucky to avoid leaving, but, "Since I'm packed anyway... Would it be okay if I moved to a different room in the manor?"

"What for?" Bruce asked.

"Well, it's just... I never stayed in the same place for this long before," Dick said. "It's starting to feel weird..."

.

Wally mused over Dick's story. "My family's against me being a superhero, too. It's not that they want me to be 'normal.' They just think it's too dangerous. But they don't want me to sneak off and fight crime on my own - again - so they figure it's safer if I'm Uncle Barry's partner and let him watch me."

Dick didn't reply.

"I keep telling them I can take care of myself," Wally said. "And _most_ of the time I can. It's just... sometimes... I get..."

He got frustrated. Then he looked at Dick, who still hadn't responded. "...Are you listening?"

Dick blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"Earth to Dick, you still with us?"

"Y-Yeah, I was just thinking about my family..." He lowered his head. "Batman was right about one thing. Robin or not... I still miss them."

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 3/7/2017) I didn't plan to do this chapter, but I thought of it after waking up on my day off, and compulsively started writing. Anyone who watches Doctor Who will probably recognize this chapter. I stole a lot from episodes that feature interrogations like "Deep Breath" and "Heaven Sent." Thinking of it, Peter Capaldi would make an interesting Batman.

In "Batman: Hush" (I think) it showed that Batman has safety devices in his cowl to stop people from taking it off. I decided to put something similar in Robin's mask (I suppose to make up for its flimsiness as a disguise).


	6. Survivor

"What's your uncle like?" Wally suddenly asked.

Dick didn't answer. He seemed uncomfortable.

"You still see him, right?" Wally added.

Eventually, Dick said, "Not as much as I should..."

.

The building was called an "assisted living facility." It was basically one part hospital and one part retirement home. Dick thought it was an awful place to live.

Still, Dick Grayson went there on December 1st, local time - his tenth birthday - his first birthday without his parents.

It wasn't in Gotham City, or even the same state. Bruce Wayne made a point of looking around for the best one. The drive was nearly two hours long, but Alfred didn't complain. Dick didn't say much during the ride either.

They signed in at the lobby, and Alfred volunteered to wait for him there. Dick went up to the room by himself. The hallways were white and sterile clean.

The door to the room was open. Dick stood out of sight beyond the doorway for a moment. There were a lot of uncomfortable, unnamed emotions swirling inside him, but Dick took a deep breath and put on a brave, smiling face, just like his aunt taught him at the circus.

 _That's just show business, Dick. Some days you're sad but the show goes on_.

He stepped into the doorway. He didn't announce himself, just made eye contact with the room's occupant. A man lay back on the bed with his torso slightly raised. A caretaker stood nearby.

The man was Richard "Rick" Grayson - Dick's uncle and namesake. He smiled at the newcomer. Then he told his caretaker, "Can we have some time alone?"

The younger man nodded, and quietly walked past Dick on the way out.

His uncle was on the verge of death after that fall at the circus. He was in a coma for a while, and they knew even if he did wake up we would have little to no mobility in all his limbs. Dick never went to visit him at the hospital while he was unconscious. It had been several months since he woke up and got settled in this home, but in all that time Dick only saw him two or three times.

Dick hesitantly walked into the room, still smiling. " _Hello, uncle_ ," he said in Romanian.

His uncle smiled again and closed his eyes. " _I've missed hearing that language_ ," he replied in Romanian.

It felt like another needle prick in his chest. Dick's face twitched, but he walked closer and sat in the chair facing the bed. There wasn't much more furniture in the tiny apartment, except a wheelchair in the corner. There was a television in easy view of the bed, and a radio. Dick ignored them all and focused on his uncle's face.

" _Happy birthday, Little Bird_ ," his uncle said.

His family called him that sometimes. Dick had always loved birds.

" _Thanks_ ," Dick said. He struggled to find something else to say. "How are you" wouldn't come out easily.

His uncle spoke up again first. " _Isn't today a school day?_ " he asked with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Dick hesitated, then shrugged casually. " _The school loves Bruce. They're not going to care if I miss one day_."

His uncle laughed. " _Still a trouble-maker, huh? Little John was a bad influence on you._ "

Dick was glad to hear that his uncle was okay with talking about his son John.

" _So how is school?_ " his uncle asked.

He hesitated again. Then he put on an even bigger smile than before. " _It's great. It's a lot of work, but it's still really fun. And everyone there is really nice. I've made a lot of friends_."

His uncle smiled knowingly and kind of sadly. " _You still can't fool me, Little Bird. I can still tell when you're lying_."

Dick lost his smile. He lowered his eyes to his lap. " _I'm sorry_..."

" _You can tell me. How is it?_ "

" _It's_..." He shrugged. " _I don't know. It's not bad. It's just... The kids are all... They made me feel_..."

" _Different?_ "

" _Yeah_..."

" _I know that's tough, but it'll be okay. Just give it more time. Kids your age can adapt to anything_ ," his uncle said optimistically.

That's something Dick had heard a lot. Children adjust to new environments. He'll bounce right back. But the words felt hollow to Dick. It hadn't been that easy.

He spat out what he needed to say. " _I'm sorry I don't visit you more often_."

" _It's okay_ ," his uncle said gently. Dick didn't really think it was, though. " _I know you're busy in Gotham_." That wasn't really why he never came.

He made sure not to stare at his uncle's arms or legs.

" _Is Mr. Wayne here too?_ " his uncle asked.

Dick shook his head. " _No. He's even busier in Gotham. Alfred drove me today... And you can call him Bruce. Only people who don't know him call him Mr. Wayne._ "

" _I still don't know him that well_ ," his uncle replied. " _I owe him everything, though. Taking care of you. Paying for all this_ ," his eyes looked around the room. " _I_ c _an't thank him enough_."

" _Yeah, me neither_ ," Dick nodded.

" _That being said... Is he treating you okay?_ " He looked at Dick seriously.

The boy blinked. " _Yeah, Bruce is great_."

" _You don't have any problem with him then?_ "

" _No_." Dick tilted his head. " _Well, he's really busy. I can't always see him whenever I want. Especially when I first moved in, but it's better now. And... People don't know this about him, but he doesn't really like himself. He doesn't really think he's a good person, but he's wrong. He's a REALLY great man. I'm glad I met him._ "

His uncle smiled. " _That's great, then_."

" _Bruce has done a lot for me. Not just letting me stay with him, or paying for stuff. He's a taught me a lot of things_..." Dick remembered something and smiled brightly. " _I know computer code now. I can program stuff_."

" _That's impressive_."

" _Yeah. I'm still a beginner. I'm still learning, but turns out, I'm REALLY good at it. Even Bruce says so, and he doesn't give compliments unless he means it_."

" _You always were good with numbers_ ," he uncle said proudly.

" _Actually, math is only a one part of computer programming. It's more like learning a new language, and figuring out how the computer understands it, and figuring out all the different ways to say the same thing. Like, no matter what you have, you can always add new layers to it. There's always something new to do. Like, if you want to find a back door to a certain block of code, you can try..._ " Dick realized he was starting to ramble, and smiled sheepishly. " _I don't know how to describe it without going into the whole thing_."

" _I'm happy for you, Dick. It sounds like you're doing really well for yourself_."

This conversation was hard for Dick. It was hard for him to know what topics were safe to say out loud. There were things he wanted to say... Things he needed to say... Things he could never say.

" _Did you like your present?_ " his uncle asked.

" _What?_ "

" _You know, the Hans Christian Andersen book. The French translation,_ " he explained. He seemed disappointed at Dick's confusion. " _Didn't it arrive in the mail yet?_ "

" _N-No,_ " Dick shook his head.

" _Oh._ " His uncle smiled. " _Sorry for spoiling the surprise._ "

" _You got that for me?_ "

" _It's the same book your mom got you, except in French. I thought you might enjoy reading it in a different language. So I asked the staff to find it online, and they ordered it with my money._ "

" _You didn't have to do that,_ " Dick said.

" _Of course I did,_ " his uncle replied incredulously. " _What kind of uncle forgets his favorite nephew on his tenth birthday?_ "

Dick stared at him for a little while. He sniffed, and he started to blink a lot.

" _I'm sorry,_ " Dick's voice cracked.. He lowered his head. " _I'm really sorry._ "

" _For what?_ "

" _For never being here..._ "

" _I told you that's okay._ "

" _No it's not!_ " Dick snapped, which shocked his uncle. Dick's eyes were watering. " _You're all alone here. I'm all you have left, so I should be here more!_ "

" _You come when you can,_ " his uncle said gently, understandingly.

" _No I don't! I stay away on purpose,_ " Dick cried. He really cried. Tears dripped on his face and he took shaky, shuddering breaths. He finally spat out what he was ashamed of. " _I can't stand seeing you like this! I'm sorry, but I HATE coming here, and thinkin' about what happened, and mom an' dad, an'...!_ " He started slurring his Romanian words. " _But - But I know you need me! I'm all you have left. I know I'm not suppose' to leave you alone, and I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry..._ "

By this point Dick bent his head down low and was sobbing uncontrollably, talking incoherently.

" _No, no, Dick. It's okay... It's okay, Dick... Look at me._ " His uncle wanted to hold his head, but he had to settle for talking. " _Look at me, Richard! Look at my face,_ " he said firmly, in that voice adults use when they want children to listen.

Dick lifted his head and sniffed hard.

" _You are not doing anything wrong, Richard,_ " his uncle said firmly.

" _Bu - But-!_ "

" _I mean it. It is NOT your job to look after me._ " He smiled. " _You're the same as always, Little Bird. You're always in such a hurry to grow up. You're so smart, and strong, and you work hard, it's easy to forget you're only a little boy. You shouldn't force yourself to do things you're not ready for._ "

Dick sniffed again, wiping his tears and snot on his hands.

" _I know you don't like seeing me this weak,_ " his uncle continued. " _The truth is, I don't like looking this weak in front of you either. When I first woke up, I told you not to come, remember?_ "

" _But I should'a come anyway,_ " Dick whimpered. " _I should'a been stronger..._ "

" _I'M the one who was supposed to take care of YOU. I don't want you to worry about me. I want you to get on with your life,_ " his uncle replied.

" _But what about you...? Don't you hate it here...?_ "

" _Of course I hate it,_ " he said casually. " _I don't want to be in this bed or in that wheelchair. I want to be out jumping and spinning. I want my wife and son and your parents alive. But... it is what it is. I just have to get the hell on with it. We both do._ "

Dick's lip trembled. He sniffed and wiped his nose again.

" _And I'm not doing nothing all day, waiting for you to visit, you know._ " His uncle thought for a moment. " _I watch movies now - Never had much time for that before,_ " he added with a smirk. " _I've been reading a lot - Well, listening - Audiobooks, mostly. I'm trying to learn new things. I read biographies from famous people. I'm thinking of writing one of my own, actually... I talk with the other residents here. I have friends... It's not much of a life, but it's not all bad. I make it work._ "

He looked at Dick seriously. " _I know you miss the others. I miss them too. I don't want you to worry about me on top of that. I want you to be busy in Gotham, learning new things. You take care of yourself. You can take as much time as you need before coming back._ "

Dick wiped his hands on his sleeves. When he got them as clean as they were going to get, he reached out towards his uncle - then pulled back - hesitantly moving his hands around, unsure where to put them. He stared at his uncle's useless arms and legs. " _C-Can I hug you...?_ "

" _Of course._ "

Dick stood up and leaned close to his uncle, slowly, hesitantly holding his shoulders and pressing against his body.

His uncle spoke in Dick's ear. " _That one night ruined a big part of my life._ _ **Don't you dare**_ _let it ruin yours too, Little Bird... You grow up... And you be amazing._ "

" _I love you,_ " Dick whispered. And it was true. Dick didn't think he was very good at it, but he did love him.

Inside, he wondered how sincere his uncle's words were. Maybe he didn't even like seeing Dick because the boy reminded him of the others. Maybe he was thinking things he forced himself not to say, just as Dick had always been thinking things he forced himself not to say. Things he didn't think it would be okay to say out loud, like:

 _Are you really okay here, just sitting around never moving?_

 _Do you think about the family?_

 _Do you think about dying?_

 _Do you ever think it would be better if you didn't survive that night?_

Ten-year-old Dick never said those things, to anyone.

.

Twelve-year-old Dick sat on the rooftop hugging his knees to his chest. He was extremely quiet.

Fifteen-year-old Wally watched his friend, thinking about the story he heard. He spent a while respecting the silence, and then he decided to deliberately lighten the mood.

"So," Wally spoke up, "you and your uncle are both named Richard?"

"Yes," Dick answered without lifting his head.

"And your dad and your cousin are both named John?" Wally asked.

"Yes," Dick answered.

"And your middle name is also John?" Wally asked.

"Yes," Dick answered.

"Okay, next question: Did your family _not know_ any other names?!" Wally said incredulously.

That made Dick raise his head. "It's tradition," he said defensively. "Naming someone after a relative shows that they have a place in the family."

"That's what the _family_ name is for," Wally replied. "Besides, having all those people with the same name - didn't that get confusing around the circus?"

"No," Dick said simply.

"Really?" Wally said with surprise. "Never?"

"Well," Dick titled his head, "it was a wild place to start with."

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 3/8/2017) I didn't make up Dick's uncle Rick. I think only his parents existed in the main comics, but in the comic based on the Young Justice cartoon, it confirmed Dick had a bigger family and that his uncle survived the fall. I hate it when comic book families reuse the same names for all the extended relatives and middle names (I'm looking at you, Peter Parker). I _was_ going to change the uncle's name, but then decided to lampshade it instead.

Please review. I'm still very eager for feedback.


	7. Circus

The circus was back in town.

After more than a full year, Haly's International Traveling Circus returned to Gotham City. There was controversy about continuing the show at all after the tragic deaths of its acrobats, and there was bad publicity about returning to the city it happened. But in spite of all that they set up shop with their bravest smiles. The show must go on.

Inevitably, Dick Grayson went to see them. Not as a spectator, but as a visitor. He, Bruce, and Alfred all went together in the early afternoon, before the crowds arrived. The people outside knew who they were, so there was _absolutely_ no problem letting them go backstage.

The trio walked into a large tent. Alfred immediately looked uncomfortable. "Oh... It - It's rather..."

"Warm?" Dick asked.

"That too, but I was thinking, uh..." The butler rubbed his nose. "...fragrant."

Dick laughed. "Yeah, it's the animals. You get used to it in no time."

They found an elephant (sort of hard to miss). It was being attended to by a woman, middle-aged but still pretty, with big curly hair.

"Lulu!" Dick called.

She turned around and smiled brightly. "Dicky Bird!"

He ran up and they hugged each other tightly. She was one of the elephant trainers. Her name was Rue, but she insisted people call her Lulu because it sounded more "circus-y."

She pulled back and looked him over. "Oh, I was waiting for you to come around. Lord knows how mad I'd be if you stood me up."

"Where's Zitka?" Dick asked. Zitka was Dick's favorite elephant.

Lulu put her hands on her hips in mock offense. "I'm fine, thanks for asking." She smiled. "She's with Micah in the other tent." Micah was another trainer. Lulu noticed the other two men and raised an eyebrow. "...And who's that handsome devil?"

Bruce stepped forward and offered his hand with a charming smile. "Bruce Wayne."

She stepped aside. "Not you. The _mature_ one." She grinned at Alfred, and in her most seductive voice said, "I just love a man in a bow tie."

Alfred, looking slightly alarmed, put a hand over his tie.

Lulu turned back and accepted Bruce's handshake. "But seriously. Thank you for all you've done for Dick."

"Of course," Bruce said. "After what happened to him, I felt like I needed to help. Never regretted it."

"I've been keeping tabs on you, you know," Lulu said. "I must admit, I was a little worried at first about what Dicky Bird had gotten himself into. But you've changed a lot in the past year, Bruce. The charities. The humanitarian work. Looks like he had a good effect on you too."

Bruce smiled and nodded, putting on a professional expression of modesty. "It's true. Having a child to raise was a pretty solid wake up call that it was time for me to grow up myself."

Dick knew there was more to the story. Before they met, Bruce deliberately created the image of being a hedonistic, irresponsible, rich-boy. He did it so no one would suspect his true interests and other life. For a while Bruce had wanted to start being more useful in his public persona as well, and becoming a father figure was the perfect excuse to make the change.

"Uh, Master Dick-!" Alfred spoke up with some more alarm. Dick had been rubbing his hand on the elephant's trunk, when the elephant wrapped it around the boy's waist.

"Don't worry, Alfred," Dick called back cheerfully. "This is Ion. He's harmless. You should stay away from Sylvie, though. She gets cranky."

Lulu lost her smile and turned towards Dick. "Oh, right, you didn't hear... I'm sorry, Dick. Sylvie passed away."

Dick lost his smile too. "What...? But she was only in her fifties..."

She shrugged sadly. "They don't all make it to their sixties."

Dick digested this slowly. He looked around the tent. Ion was the only elephant there. "What about Bruno?"

"We sold Bruno to a zoo out in Germany," Lulu explained. "Business has been tough this past year. We needed to cut costs."

The circus had changed while Dick was away. They moved on without him. Dick realized it was stupid to have expected any different.

.

"It's great to see you again, Dick," Jack Haly said as he hugged the boy.

They were alone in Haly's office-slash-trailer. Dick pulled away and said, "It's good to see you too." He meant it, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

Haly sat on the edge of his desk. "You here by yourself?"

"Bruce and Alfred came with me," Dick replied. "Bruce wandered off somewhere. He didn't want to intrude on all my reunions. And by now Alfred is... probably locked in Lulu's dressing room and trying to escape."

Haly laughed loudly. He looked exactly as Dick remembered him. Larger than life, white hair, but a youthful glow in his eye. He was always like a grandfather to Dick.

"So how have you been lately?" Haly asked.

"Uh..." He considered this. "Homesick," he answered with a grin. "It feels so good to see everything again. It's nothing like living in the city. No comparison at all."

"Are you still practicing acrobatics?"

"Of course! Bruce has a great gymnasium at the manor. It's not an actual trapeze, but it's got flying rings, and steady rings, and uneven bars, and all sorts of stuff. I never stopped training."

Dick didn't mention his nights as Robin, of course. That was best of all. Swinging through the air on his grappling hook. Doing dangerous stunts and risking his life to catch criminals. It was a completely different thing than putting on a show for an audience, and yet those nights were the times Dick felt most like himself again... But then the sun comes up and it's over. Back to school and civilian life.

"Listen," Haly said, uncharacteristicly somber. "I'm sorry you couldn't stay with us. If I could be a full-time parent on top of running the whole circus, I would have done it, but-"

"It's fine," Dick said quickly. "I had Bruce, so it all worked out."

"And... I never said this, but... I'm sorry about your family."

"Don't apologize," he replied very calmly.

"No, I need to say this now," Haly insisted. His expression was more than sad. It was remorseful. "I've been thinking about it ever since that day. Ever since that bas - that _bum_ \- Zucco came here. Thinking... maybe I should have just said 'yes'... Maybe if I just paid him, he wou-"

"Don't say that."

"But-"

"No! Just SHUT UP!"

Haly wasn't used to hearing Dick shout like that. Dick wasn't real used to it either.

Dick lowered his head. "If you apologize, then I'll have to think about whether or not to forgive you, and... I don't want to think about that now."

Haly diverted his eyes. Dick kept his head lowered. The two of them just stayed there silently, not looking at each other.

There were several things Dick didn't like about himself... Petty emotions he couldn't control. He knew it wasn't right. But he couldn't stop it.

"I'm sorry," Dick said quietly.

Haly looked at him again. "Doesn't matter anyway. There are no do-overs in life. We both just need to make the best of what it gives us... So how are you making out?"

He thought about it. "I'm... okay," he answered with a little nodding. "I still miss my family, and the way things were, but... I think I'm actually okay."

"Best news I've heard all day," Haly said with a little smile. "You know what the worst thing about living in the circus is? The traveling. I'm glad you don't have to deal with that anymore."

That confused Dick. "I loved the traveling," he protested.

"But you're always leaving someone behind. That's not good for young people. You have lots of friends now, right?"

"Not... really," he admitted a little embarrassedly.

"That's no good. You should take full advantage of living with Mr. Wayne. Get to know the people, instead of just passing through. Make friends your own age."

"And do _what_ with them?" Dick asked.

Haly smiled at him, the way he does when the answer is obvious. "Be happy."

.

Back on the rooftop, twelve-year-old Dick spoke with guilt. "Everyone's always so kind to me. Bruce, Uncle Rick, Haly. But I just keep blowing up at them. And I don't even know why. Why didn't I just forgive Haly? Even if I didn't mean it, why didn't I just _say_ it?"

"Is that why you came looking for me today?" Wally asked. "Because you remembered what Haly said about getting closer to your friends?"

Dick shrugged in a non-commital way. "I guess."

Wally wasn't satisfied with that answer.

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 3/9/2017) Uncle Rick, Haly, and even Zitka have a basis in the canon. Lulu, however, I totally made up. I didn't know the name of a canon circus trainer and I didn't want to bother looking one up. (I've been writing this entire story in a rush.) Please review.


	8. Research

Robin first met Kid Flash in Gotham City. Although "meet" wasn't the right word.

It was during a fight with a criminal called False Face. At one point he pulled a gun and fired at Robin, but before the boy could even try to dodge, a blur raced by and snatched the bullet out of the air.

Robin did some research later. He discovered that during the previous few days, there were several reports of mysterious events that could be explained by someone with super speed doing good deeds. But it couldn't have been the Flash - he would have stayed to introduce himself, instead of hiding.

Batman told Robin that he would look into it, and that Robin shouldn't interfere. Batman knew several secrets about the rest of the Justice League that Robin wasn't allowed to pry about.

A few weeks later, Kid Flash made his official debut in Central City.

Working theory: Kid Flash wasn't allowed to be a superhero in Central, so he ran away to Gotham to secretly do it anyway. Then Flash changed his mind and let him be an official hero in Central.

Dick knew he probably shouldn't snoop. But he was excited to hear about another hero his own age. He was curious, and he was training to be a detective, so... He decided to find out who this new kid hero was.

Dick already knew the Flash's secret identity. He was a forensic scientist in Central City named Barry Allen. It might seem strange that an eleven-year-old was able to figure out a secret that so many others were unable to, but Dick _was_ being trained by the World's Greatest Detective. _And_ being so close to another Justice League member let him recognize certain clues that other people wouldn't notice.

Also, he knew the passwords to all the files in Batman's computer (Don't tell Bruce!).

So, Dick knew the Flash's real name. Now he just had to find Kid Flash's. A quick background check on Barry Allen revealed that he had no children, but he had a nephew named Wally West. That was easy.

Some time later, Batman got a lead that the Royal Flush Gang would resurface in Central City. He suggested that he and Robin would go there to help Flash and Kid Flash stop them. Batman said the sting would be a good opportunity for the two sidekicks to train together. It would be a learning experience.

Batman tried to make it sound professional, but Robin could tell he was really just setting them up for a play date. It amused him and got him a little embarrassed at the same time.

Bruce would never make a big show of it, but deep down he worried about Dick sometimes. He was worried Dick didn't have enough friends. This vigilante lifestyle didn't give him many chances to get close to people. (Of course, Dick wasn't good at getting close to people back in the circus either. He never even thought of trying until he became stuck in one place.)

A while ago, Batman similarly introduced Robin to Speedy, Green Arrow's partner. Speedy was nice, and Robin considered them friends, but they weren't very close either. Speedy was much older than Robin, and he only ever focused on work. The teenager didn't seem very eager to make friends.

Dick couldn't tell his schoolmates that he was Robin. And he couldn't tell Speedy that he was Dick Grayson. It's hard to get close to someone when you can't tell them anything about yourself.

And so, the day before the big meet up, Dick decided to learn a little more about Kid Flash-slash-Wally West.

.

Wally wasn't on social media. This struck Dick as a little weird - only because everyone in his school told him how weird it was back when _Dick_ wasn't on social media.

He did a basic background check. Born in Central City, moved away, moved back, blah blah blah. He lived with both his parents - who were still alive.

That also surprised Dick a little. Dick lost his parents. Bruce lost his. Speedy lost his birth parents before Green Arrow became his guardian. He was pretty sure the Flash lost someone too. He figured it was a trend for superheroes. It was usually the motivation that made them want to become heroes in the first place.

Dick dug a little bit deeper. This Wally guy never had any siblings. The Flash's mother - who would be Wally's great aunt - was murdered, but that was before Wally was even born. A friend then? Dick wasn't about to look up the death reports of everyone in Central City, but a quick look made it seem like Wally hadn't lost any close friends either.

Dick _stayed_ Robin because he liked it, but he first _became_ Robin to avenge his family - to stop Tony Zucco from ever hurting anyone else's family. That was the trigger that made Dick want to be a hero.

But it seemed like Wally didn't have any particular tragedy in his life. So what was his trigger? Then again, he had superpowers. Maybe it was more natural for him to become a superhero, even without a specific motivation.

That raised the question: How did he get his powers?

Dick knew about the Flash's powers. He thought they were pretty cool. Back in the circus, traveling across counties and continents was a slow process. Imagine, just going ZAP and there you were in a new place. Kid Flash decided to do his early crime fighting in Gotham because traveling that far was no big deal at all.

Could Kid Flash vibrate his molecules through matter, the same as Flash senior? _That_ would be an awesome power to have. Even now, Dick still had trouble getting out of handcuffs. And don't get him started on strait jackets. He was _way_ behind Bruce in his level of escape artistry. But a speedster could simply phase through those restraints. That'd make Dick's life easier.

Okay, he admitted it. He was a little jealous.

The world of superheroes meant the world of superpowers. Batman and Green Arrow were exceptions to the rule. It was very interesting to Dick now that he was being exposed to this stuff.

In the circus, everyone had special talents. The Flying Graysons could do things that were impossible for the knife-throwers, but then the knife-throwers would do things that were impossible for the Graysons. And Dick wasn't allowed to even go near the lion tamers as they worked. Even the clowns had tricks that worked best after many hours of training. Each performer in the circus had something that could be considered a "superpower." It was possible for Dick to have more than one, but it would require long training.

Every human had time they could spend on something - it was simply a question on what you chose to do with it.

But superheroes threw the curve right out the window. They could do things that other humans would never be able to do, no matter how long they trained. And sometimes those powers appeared overnight. It was fascinating to Dick.

Dick wanted to know more about Wally's powers. But he wouldn't get the answers by Google.

It was the night before they would go to Central City to fight the Royal Flush Gang and meet Kid Flash. And so, as carefully as he could, Dick snuck onto Batman's computer down in the Batcave.

Batman's security was one of the most powerful in the world. But once you knew a few of his passwords, it was surprisingly easy to get past. Of course, Dick and Alfred were the only ones close enough to have a chance at that.

He got onto the Bat-Computer. Batman had a file on most heroes and villains. He was obsessive like that. There was a file on the Flash... and a small file on Kid Flash.

Dick knew looking up info on Wally like this wasn't exactly _right_. But, he figured... Well, what's the harm?

He opened the file.

Real name: Wallace Rudolph West. Date of birth, blah blah blah. Dick didn't care about that. There was some info about his powers... Estimated max speed... Nothing about whether or not he could phase. That annoyed Dick. That's the part he was really curious about. Well, Wally was young. His powers were new. Maybe nobody knew all the answers yet.

Oh! This got Dick's attention. It said here that Wally obtained super speed by recreating the same experiment that gave the previous Flashes their powers. He did it to himself?!

This told Dick two things. One: He probably learned about the experiment from his uncle. Maybe he dug around in his notes (not unlike what Dick was doing right now). But even if he had detailed instructions, Wally had to be some kind of _savant_ in chemistry in order to actually do it at his age.

Two: Getting his powers was not an accident. Wally was deliberately trying to become a superhero. He didn't have anyone to avenge, so why go so far? Why did he try so hard to save people? Was he just... really nice? That was kind of cool.

Okay, Dick definitely wanted to be this guy's friend now.

He did some more searching on the computer. There was something there about Wally receiving treatment at a hospital. It was one of the specialized clinics the Justice League uses when they get hurt, the one closest to Central City. Bruce had this info because he discreetly supplied some funding to it. That got Dick a little interested. Maybe it had more info about how his powers affected his body. Let's see... Medical History... It was sealed.

Wally's medical history had more protection than the rest of his info, which sort of made sense. But Dick hardly wanted to stop _now_. Getting past the security wasn't hard. He was _really_ good at hacking (and, yeah, he still had all Batman's passwords, so that made it easier). Dick read through Wally's medical records. The word "epilepsy" came up a lot.

'... _Severe imbalance of neural activity in the brain, presumed to be related to hyper-accelerated metabolism_...'

'... _theorize that so-called 'Super Speed' causes extreme stimulation of nerve cell activity that cannot be regulated by other centers of the brain_... _epilepsy-like symptoms... loss of consciousness_...'

'... _Recurrent and unprovoked tonic-clonic seizures... varies between tremors and intense thrashing... No identifiable pattern... subject should not be restrained due to risk of bone dislocation_...'

'... _Conventional medication ineffective due to hyper-accelerated metabolism_... _with mild effectiveness. Further testing with concentrated medication required for_...'

Wally's super speed had side effects. The Flash didn't have anything like that.

Super speed-induced epilepsy. In layman terms, his body couldn't handle the energy he was producing. He could fall unconscious at any time without warning. The attacks were completely random. There was information about forged prescriptions and experimental medicine used to try and keep it under control, with varying effectiveness.

Wally worked hard to give himself superpowers, and the result made his body start breaking down.

Dick somberly closed all the files on the computer.

 _I feel like I looked at something I shouldn't have_...

.

On the rooftop in Central City, Wally spoke up. "Whoa, wait... Did you say Batman has a file on me? And you read it?"

"Don't freak out. He has a file on everyone," Dick replied nonchalantly.

Regardless, Wally seemed nervous. "...What did it say?"

Dick smirked. "If you ever turn evil, I'm supposed to use Bat-Super-Weapon Number Eleven on you. Number Twelve is for Wonder Woman."

"I'm serious," he snapped. "What did it say?!"

Dick blinked. "Sorry. Just... basic stuff. It had your name. Your address. Your max speed - estimated, at least. It didn't mention if you could phase or not. Just basic stuff."

Wally stared at him. "That it? Not... anything else?"

"Like what?" Dick seemed innocently confused.

"Like... something private."

He shrugged. "I dunno. Define 'private'."

He hesitated. Then Wally waved his hand in a dismissive way. "You know, just forget it. Forget I asked."

Dick didn't mind playing dumb. This was one day he didn't Wally to get angry at him.

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (3/15/2017) This is the chapter that confirms this story is in the same continuity as my other story, "Fate Plays Favorites." Next chapter will be their first introduction from Robin's POV. Please review.


	9. Reveal

Robin first met Kid Flash in Central City. It was their first real meeting - the first time they spoke.

Batman and Robin were waiting on a rooftop across the street from an art museum. Robin impatiently checked the time on his wrist computer. "They're late." It was only a minute, but still. "Do you think something happened to them?" he asked quietly.

"The Flash is always late," Batman said in the tone of voice he always used on the job - no nonsense with just a hint of irritation.

"How is that possible?" Robin asked. " _We_ are the ones who had to travel the long way. How is it physically possible for someone with super speed to be late?"

"The League's theory is that his super-speed is compensated by super-lateness."

Suddenly, two streaks ran up the building and stopped next to them.

"I _told_ you we were going to be late," Kid Flash complained to his mentor.

"We're not late," the Flash shrugged it off with a casual smile. Then he looked at Batman a little nervously. "Are we?"

"The Royal Flush Gang hasn't started yet," Batman answered.

The Flash's costume was almost entirely red with just a few yellow accents. Kid Flash had an even mix of yellow and red. His mask was open at the top, letting his long orange bangs blow in the wind. Robin wondered how that didn't cause problems for his secret identity - Robin only got away with it because black hair was so common. He was taller than Robin - about two years older.

Two years... It's been that long already, hasn't it?

Robin pushed the thought out of his mind. This was their formal introduction. He smiled, stepped forward, and held out his hand. "Robin - Boy Wonder."

The other sidekick accepted the handshake. "Kid Flash - Boy Speedster."

He finally said what he wanted to since Kid Flash caught that bullet. "I've been wanting to say thanks for saving me. You know, back when you were sneaking around Gotham. I owe you one."

Kid Flash blinked. "Uh... Sure. No sweat."

"That being said," Robin continued with a wide grin, "I could have dodged it on my own, of course."

Kid Flash hesitated a moment, then he smiled back. "Suuuure you could've."

"I _so_ could. I've been doing this way longer than you have."

"Yeah, but have you been doing it _faster_?"

That made Robin laugh. Then he became slightly more serious. "Speaking of faster, I have a quick question about your powers. I know the Flash can vibrate his molecules fast enough to move through solid matter. Can you do that yet, or are you still learning?"

He looked a little uncomfortable. "Truth is... I'm _unable_ to vibrate my molecules. Whenever I try... I..." He paused. "I get a nosebleed."

That made Robin laugh again.

"It's not funny!" Kid Flash snapped.

Robin coughed and straightened his face.

Eventually, Kid Flash smiled a little and said, "Okay, I guess it is."

"Something's happening," the Flash said.

They looked down at the art museum. All was dark inside. But from inside the lobby, the faint glimmer of a flashlight could be seen through the glass doors.

 _Time to go to work_ , Robin thought.

.

What does it mean to be in danger?

Robin had a slightly different opinion than most people. In the front of his mind, he knew that it was _possible_ to be killed each time he fought with a supervillain, or any petty criminal with a gun. And yet he didn't think it would really happen, because he _was_ good at his job - because he _did_ know how to risk his life without losing it.

That mentality was why he was never scared of performing without a net - because he _was_ good enough on the trapeze that he didn't need one. Unless someone like Tony Zucco broke the rules.

There was always a chance of being badly hurt on a mission, but Robin wasn't scared. He had gone through the motions before. And tonight there were two speedsters helping them out. The risk was negligible.

Being in danger is different from _really_ being in danger. That's what Robin thought.

The five members of the Gang were beaten in no time. The police came to collect them and the art was returned to the museum. The four heroes regrouped on another rooftop.

"The Flash and I need to discuss a few things before we return to Gotham," Batman said. "Wait here."

The two adult heroes walked to the opposite edge of the rooftop, leaving plenty of space for the two sidekicks.

 _'Discuss,' yeah right_ , Robin thought.

Batman and Flash weren't here to discuss things. This night wasn't even really about the Royal Flush Gang. This whole thing was just an excuse for Robin and Kid Flash to become friends.

Robin felt like they were a pair of pandas and the zookeepers shoved them into the same tank hoping they'd mate. He was annoyed at the adults.

But on the other hand, Robin really did want to get to know Kid Flash. It was like he swapped positions with all the other children he met over the years: Kid Flash was the amazing, interesting, new kid in town and Dick Grayson was the stationary kid who wanted to ask questions and see his tricks.

"Hey," Robin spoke up. "You can tell me to mind my own business, but... What made you want to be a crime fighter?"

 _What makes someone, who has powers and no one to avenge, use those powers for good instead of evil?_

The taller boy looked over to the other side of the roof, where his uncle stood, and he said, "The Flash was my idol. I wanted to be just like him." He shrugged. "That's all there was to it, really."

That's all there was to it. He didn't _need_ a better reason. That made Robin smile.

Kid Flash looked back to Robin. "How about you? Why did you start being Robin?"

He stopped smiling. He couldn't tell the whole story - for several reasons - so instead he simply said, "I had a bad day once."

"A bad day?"

"A _really_ bad day... I thought if I joined Batman, I could help stop other people from having bad days, the way I did."

"I see..." Kid Flash lowered his head. "I guess my reason seems stupid compared to yours."

Robin did not expect to hear that. "I didn't say that. I like your reason."

Kid Flash looked back up at him, with a skeptically raised eyebrow. Robin noticed that he didn't smile very often.

"You know, back in Gotham City," Robin said, "I've seen a bunch of people who suddenly got superpowers or fancy weapons, and all they wanted to do is steal stuff or get revenge on someone. You could be doing anything with your speed, but you want to stop crime. The reason you _want_ to be like the Flash is 'cause you're a good person, right?"

Kid Flash didn't look skeptical anymore. Instead, he seemed taken aback by the praise. "...I never thought of it like that before."

The Flash was always so cheerful and outgoing. He was friendly, confident, and even a bit of a ham. But Kid Flash wasn't like that. He _acted_ like that in his (very rare) appearances on the news. But up close, it was almost like he was ready to go hide somewhere.

"You're a little different than what I imagined," Robin told him.

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. You just seem sort of down on yourself. You should lighten up more."

"Lighten up?" Kid Flash pointed a thumb towards Batman. "This coming from a disciple of the 'dark blackness of night' or whatever?"

Robin laughed. "That's not being down. That's being _intimidating_ ," he shot back. "And even Batman has a brighter side deep down... Way deep."

"You don't say?"

"A lot of people think Batman is heartless because he's putting a little kid like me in danger. I think some of the Justice League is mad at him for it. But even if he raises me in an 'unconventional' way, he really does care about me."

Unconventional but caring, just like Dick's family.

.

Doing tricks on a trapeze is always dangerous, but some stunts are more dangerous than others.

For as long as he could remember - literally - Dick practiced his moves carefully, under controlled conditions. He wasn't allowed to do them without a net, nor in front of an audience, unless his parents were certain he was ready for it.

In spite of how much Dick begged to do the really exciting stuff right away, his parents made him practice first. They explained that it was dangerous unless you really knew what you were doing. Practice, perfection, _then_ performance - that was the rule. Dick remembered sneaking away and fooling around on his own when he was six, and he dislocated his shoulder. He got in a lot of trouble for that.

"But Cousin John said he did that stunt on his own when he was my age," Dick protested.

"What?!" Everyone looked at John, who most definitely didn't look nervous or guilty at all.

Dick's parents were good parents, so were his aunt and uncle. They were responsible parents. They didn't let their kids do anything dangerous unless they were definitely ready for it.

But there were people who thought they shouldn't do dangerous stunts at all.

Dick remembered a group of protestors standing outside of the circus once. Or maybe they weren't protestors, maybe they were social services, or something. Dick was a little kid. He didn't know or care. The _point_ was they stood outside the tent arguing with Jack Haly and any of the customers they could force to listen. They were angry that the circus would force little children to perform without a net.

Dick overheard his cousin call them "presuntuoso." It was an Italian word. He said it meant that they thought they were better than everyone else, their way was the right way, even though they had _nothing_ to back it up with. (Dick later learned the English word was "pious," though he wasn't sure that was an accurate translation. It didn't sound very English either.)

Those protestors wanted Dick and John taken away from the circus. They kept yelling things like it was inhumane to make children risk their lives for entertainment, they deserve to have a stable home, they should be in school and have a proper education, they should have indoor plumbing, blah blah blah.

Dick's mom held onto his shoulders protectively. Jack Haly was usually a happy and charming man but never ever accepted BS from anyone and told those people that he didn't care what they think because separating those kids from their family was never. Ever. Going. To. Happen.

The protestors still insisted that the children deserved a "good home" in the "real world." At that point, Dick broke away from his mother's hold and ran up to those people, saying, "My home _is_ good!"

One person looked down - with a word Dick later learned was "condescending" - and said, "You only think that because you don't know any better."

Those words really got under Dick's skin. He heard them a few more times over the years.

He met kids in every country he went to. Most of them were impressed by his life in the circus. But some kids focused on the bad parts. The so-called "civilized" people couldn't understand how anyone could be happy without a stable home and a comfy bed. Dick told them that families were different all over the world; there was no "right" or "wrong" way to live.

"You only think that because you don't know any better."

But the circus _was_ a good place to live. Dick told himself they were wrong. They _had_ to be wrong.

But when his parents died and he was sent to live in Gotham City, it felt like those protestors had "won" somehow.

.

Back to Robin and Kid Flash. They talked a little about friends. Turns out, Kid Flash said he didn't have many. His exact words were, "I'm just incredibly unpopular." That was another surprise for Robin.

"You got your super speed recently, right?"

"Well, not 'recent' recent. It was a few months ago." Kid Flash smiled proudly. "As a matter of fact, I got my super speed by redoing the same experiment that gave it to the Flash."

Robin already knew that, of course. But he knew Kid Flash was trying to impress him, and he didn't want to steal his thunder. "That's amazing," he said with a sincere smile. "You did the experiment all by yourself?"

"Yeah. I found the Flash's notes about it, and copied it all on my own."

"How did you get the chemicals?"

"Legally," Kid Flash said quickly. "Technically."

Robin smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes for long. "So, before that... You were the same as all your classmates, right...? You were normal."

Kid Flash looked at him a little strangely. "I guess..."

Robin hesitated, and then he asked, "What is that like?"

He looked more confused than before. "You know what it's like. You don't have powers."

"No, I'm not talking about superpowers. I mean... being 'normal'... Being the same as everyone else, instead of a crime fighter or... anything else."

Wally had a nuclear family. He lived in the suburbs. He went to a public school. He knew all the things his classmates knew. He understood the references to all the movies and TV shows. He cared about things like late homework and how his clothes look. He knew things without having to be told, like how you weren't supposed to leave your desk in the middle of class.

Kid Flash and Robin were both kid heroes, but they weren't the same at all.

"What does being 'normal' even mean? Are the kids in our schools normal?" Robin asked. "Then how exactly do you get to be like them?"

"I hated being normal," Kid Flash blurted out. "I never wanted to be the same as everyone else. I wanted to be special. That's _why_ I gave myself super speed. You know what 'normal' is? It's just a fancy word for 'not noticed.' I hated being ignored... I still hate it."

"Then why does everyone else act like it's so important?" Robin quietly asked. "Why does everyone care so much about fitting in and being the same?"

Kid Flash casually answered, "They don't know any better."

Robin looked at him in shock.

A moment later, Robin doubled over in laughter. A loud, genuine laughter that clearly confused Kid Flash. Once he got his breathing under control, he said, "Yeah... Maybe you're right... Maybe it wasn't me after all."

Robin decided then that he liked Kid Flash. He wanted them to be friends. But - just like back in the circus - Robin would have to leave him behind and go on to Gotham City. With the problem of secret identities, it's not like they could call each other on the telephone whenever they wanted. But Robin was sure: they would meet again, sometimes.

And they did meet again. There were other missions, other team-ups. Robin met Speedy again, and later met Aqualad. And he saw Kid Flash a few more times. It was a strange, part-time friendship, but Robin liked it.

Robin was eleven when he first met Kid Flash.

.

Dick Grayson was twelve when he first met Wally West. It was late November when he went to Central City and told the older boy his secret identity. Wally just turned fifteen. Dick would be thirteen soon.

They sat together on a rooftop - a different building than last time. It was dark now. Dick had been talking about his past for a long while.

"What made today different?" Wally asked.

"Different from what?" Dick replied.

"From the day we met," Wally said. "From any day. What made you tell me your identity _today_?"

"I told you. I was feeling down. I wanted to get this stuff off my chest," Dick answered simply.

"Why were you feeling down today?"

"I just was."

"From what you've been telling me, you feel down a lot," Wally said just as simply. "Never told me your life story before."

Dick stared at him for a moment. Then he got irritable. "Am I keeping you from something? Was today a bad day for you?"

"Not at all."

"Then why do you keep asking me that?"

"Why do you keep dodging the question?"

"I'm not. I told you why I came."

"Well, I'm not buying the whole 'I just felt like it' excuse."

Dick glared at him, trying to decide how to respond.

Wally hung his head and rubbed his face for a moment. "Okay, look, I'm sorry. I won't ask anymore. I'm not trying to _force_ you to tell me. You don't have to tell me _everything_. If it's none of my business, fine - but I'm not stupid! Don't expect me to believe you did this for no reason. I _know_ there's more to the story than that."

"What makes you such a big expert?" Dick shot back.

"Because I've _been_ there," he said emphatically. "Dick, you didn't sneak out of the house and run down the street. You hacked into a Zeta Beam and teleported to _another state_. That's a big deal. Now, it's easier for me to run away to another state. I have super speed. I wanted to be a superhero my whole life, so when I got my speed and my uncle told me I still couldn't be one, I was so angry I ran all the way to Gotham City. And now you ran away to my city."

Wally looked Dick in the eyes. "That's how I know... Nobody runs like that when it's just another day."

Dick was quiet for a very long time. He lowered his head, and he said, "You're right... _Of course_ you're right. It's not another day. Today is... very different."

Dick stood up and walked to the edge of the rooftop. He stared down at the sidewalk far below.

Wally watched his back. Silently. Patiently.

Dick spoke up. "You know my uncle? The one who survived the fall but was paralyzed? The one I never visit?"

"Yes," Wally answered.

"Well..." Dick hesitated a while longer, and then he finally said the reason he came here today. "He died last night."

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 3/20/2017) To see Robin and Kid Flash's first meeting from Wally's perspective, please read chapters 9 and 10 of "Fate Plays Favorites." Way back when I wrote that two years ago, I said I'd write it from Dick's perspective one day. Of course, the final result was a little different than I thought back then.

The frame story is finally coming full circle. The next few chapters will be about how Dick came to Central City and started telling this story to Wally.


	10. Tragedy Again

Dick stood near the edge of the roof, watching the lights of the city night. Wally got to his feet, watching the younger boy's back.

Dick tried to keep his voice calm as he explained. "Earlier this week, my uncle had surgery. It was supposed to try and give him back some mobility in his arms... It didn't really work. There was a complication... And a few days later he got a post-operative infection. And it got worse... And then last night he died." Dick shrugged. "Just like that. He was in a hospital full of doctors and nurses and there was nothing anyone could do. He just died." His voice cracked. "And now they're _all_ dead... My whole family's dead and when I heard... it felt like they _all_ died all over again... All of them... I just..."

He turned around. His eyes were red and watering. "Oh, Wally... They're all dead... I'm the only one left... I'm the _only one_..." He started shuddering. Wally rushed over and hugged him tightly. Dick started crying and lost the strength in his legs, but Wally held him upright. Dick was finally crying for the first time since he heard the news.

Dick screamed - a wordless cry to go with his tears. Wally hugged him as tightly as he could while Dick cried out loud.

.

That morning, Dick casually walked into the dining room - specifically, the dining room they used for breakfast. He'd been living in the manor for over three years and it _still_ struck him as funny (and a little stupid) just how much wasted space there was here.

Case in point of the wasted space: There was a very long table with many chairs but only Bruce and Alfred were sitting there. They were sitting next to each other at the end of the table, with no food in sight, and they were looking at Dick with extremely somber expressions.

Dick didn't need his super-awesome detective skills to figure out something was happening. He smiled cautiously. "What's up?"

"Sit down, Richard," Bruce said gently.

He called him "Richard." It really was serious. Confused, no longer smiling, Dick sat down around the corner from Bruce and across from Alfred. "What's up...?" he repeated.

Bruce wouldn't answer right away. He looked down to the table, then into Dick's eyes, then, "We got a call from the hospital your uncle went to."

He could guess what was coming from their tone. It had been a few days since the surgery - they would know the results for sure by now. "The operation didn't work, did it? He still can't move." Dick braced himself for that, but it was still disappointing.

"It's worse than that," Bruce said.

"Worse?" Dick blinked. "Is he _still_ not over that infection?"

"Richard..." Bruce placed his hand over Dick's. As calmly and as gently as he could, Bruce said, "He passed away."

Dick stared at him. Bruce had a rare expression of unfiltered compassion. Dick looked over at Alfred, who was sad and concerned.

"What do you mean 'passed away'?" Dick asked. He wasn't angry. He wasn't even in denial. It was spoken out of pure confusion.

"The infection spread, and late last night, he started having trouble breathing," Bruce told him. "It was too sudden. There was nothing anyone could do."

Dick continued staring. The information was sinking in by degrees. "He's dead?"

"I'm so sorry..."

Dick still wasn't that sad. There was a fog of dumb confusion he couldn't break through yet.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do in this situation. He felt like there was something he was supposed to say, but he couldn't figure out the words. Then he remembered that there's a funeral when people die. "When's the funeral?" he asked impulsively.

"Not for a few days," Bruce answered.

Dick blinked. He pulled his hand away from Bruce. The numbness was starting to go away, and he realized he didn't like that.

Alfred spoke up. "We already called your school and let them know you won't be coming today."

He looked at him with a start. "Why'd you do that?"

Alfred and Bruce looked at him. It was their turn to seem a little confused, or maybe it was another form of concern.

"The funeral's not today so there's no reason I can't go," Dick said plainly.

"No reason...?"

Dick stood up and walked over to a cabinet. "I'm not that hungry. I don't want a fancy breakfast. I'll just grab some toast or something and then I'll be ready to go."

"Dick, you don't have to go to school," Bruce said.

He spun around and snapped at him. "Well, _what else_ am I going to do today, Bruce?!"

Neither Bruce nor Alfred replied. They just continued that concerned look.

"Please, guys, I - I -" He stuttered. "I don't want to sit around the mansion doing nothing. Don't do that to me. I just - I - I need to keep busy... Okay...? I wanna deal with this gradually and keep busy. Okay?"

Bruce asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Dick replied immediately.

Bruce nodded slowly. "All right."

Alfred stood up. "I'll get some toast, then."

As Alfred walked off Bruce told Dick, "If you change your mind, don't hesitate to call us."

"Yeah, sure." Dick didn't really hear him.

.

Dick sat in class. Many kids his age sat around him. Some were paying attention to the lecture. Others were not, but later on they would whine about how hard the schoolwork was. It was the same as any other day. It was the same old thing day after day.

As he sat there and listened to the teacher babble on, he started to wonder, _Why am I here?_

Dick had meant to work hard and take careful notes. There would be a geography test later that day. European countries - easy A for him - but he had intended to take it seriously and put in real effort. He really did mean to at first, but he lost interest as the morning went on. It was getting harder to focus. Or rather, it was getting harder to focus on what he wanted to.

Uncle Rick was dead. It took over three years but it happened.

Three years in a bed, unable to move. Three years with a caretaker putting him in a wheelchair and taking him out for the occasional stroll in a garden. A life like that must have been Hell for a former acrobat.

Maybe it would have been better if he died sooner.

Dick immediately pushed that thought out of his head. That was an unforgivable thing to think. Wasn't it?

Instead, Dick looked down at his notebook and thought about his schoolwork. He didn't like being in class.

 _Why am I here?_

Maybe he should have stayed home with Alfred after all.

Dick loved his uncle. He didn't want him to die. In spite of the fact that thinking about him made him feel guilty. He should have visited right after the surgery. Dick should have visited more often in general. But it was too late now. He should have gone sooner.

He really didn't want his uncle to die. He didn't want any of them to die. But it happened anyway... All because of Tony Zucco.

That man was arrested, proven guilty, and thrown in prison, just like Dick wanted. Dick was _never_ tempted to kill Zucco - and the ugly truth was because he thought life in prison was a worse punishment. Even now, at this moment, Zucco was rotting away in a jail cell being forced to think about what he did. The maximum, longest-lasting punishment, exactly as Dick wanted.

And still, even though he defeated Zucco, that man was still hurting his family. Still, after all this time, even in prison, Zucco's actions from that night still caused another family member to die. It was _still_ happening. And Dick was just sitting here in a classroom.

Dick gripped his pencil tightly, even though he had long since stopped giving a damn about writing notes.

 _Why am I here?!_

Dick was getting better - he really was. He had adapted to the culture shock. He wasn't the foreign outsider anymore. He made a new life for himself, as Robin. He made _progress_ in learning how to live without his parents, and aunt, and cousin. He really did.

But now his uncle was dead too. Now, suddenly, Dick was the last of the Flying Graysons. There were no other survivors - no one to share the burden with.

It felt like the night his family died all over again. He was living through the loss of his family _again_. And with that Dick felt like he lost all the progress he made over these past three years. He was back at square one.

Dick hadn't really moved on at all. He was paralyzed just like his uncle was - sitting still, never moving, never changing, watching the world pass him by. Dick Grayson was stuck here.

He was stuck in this stupid school, in this stupid city. Same old thing, day after day, with no end in sight. He kept moving to different bedrooms in Wayne Manor until he made the full circuit, with no results. It was always the same manor. Same classmates. Same city. Same problem spots on night patrol. Same crime rate that never got better. Same villains that never stayed captured. Nothing changed.

Dick stared down at his desk, unmoving, unflinching.

 _WHY. AM. I. HERE?!_

.

The teacher said, "If you look over the chart on page fifty-two and compare-"

Without warning Dick sprung out of his chair. The chair toppled over with a loud clatter as Dick sprinted to the door. "Dick?! Dick Grayson!" the teacher called, but the boy was out the room before anyone could do anything.

Dick ran down the hallway. He didn't pace himself. He pushed his muscles to their limit and ran full speed. He didn't know if the teacher or anyone else was chasing to try and stop him, but he didn't care. He reached The Point of Not Caring and passed it by far.

He burst through the front doors of the building without even slowing down. If anything, he forced himself to run even faster outside. He pushed past the tiredness in his legs and the ache in his lungs as he sped down the concrete path. He could see the school gates coming up. He could see the street beyond coming towards him very fast.

Dick felt his heart hammering and blood pumping in his ears. And in spite of the ache in his lungs, he screamed. As he ran he made the loudest, longest, angriest scream he ever did.

He ran into the street. He heard a car screech to a stop, but he didn't stop to see what kind of car it was. He just went across the street and kept running. He didn't even know where he was going. But he didn't stop for anything.

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 3/24/2017) Reviewers complimented me for showing Dick's often-forgotten extended family, so they might be upset by Rick's death. But it was important for the story that Dick becomes the Last Flying Grayson.


	11. Meeting

Dick Grayson loved birds. Always had.

That's why, when he needed to choose a name for his vigilante persona, he chose Robin. He didn't really put much thought into it. He just liked birds.

When Alfred learned about his fondness for them, he offered to get Dick a bird for a pet. And Dick stared at him like the man was an idiot. He knew Alfred was just being nice but anyone who thought he'd enjoy locking a bird in a cage had missed the point completely.

When he was traveling with the circus, he enjoyed watching them fly overhead. The little boy liked to imagine that he was similar to them. They could go anywhere. It didn't matter what country they built their nest or their camp. If the nest fell apart they'd just build a new one somewhere else. No attachments. No borders. Next stop: the whole world.

There was a special kind of joy that came from flying through the air that couldn't be described with words. Dick understood this because he could fly too, in a sense. Maybe not literally, but his family really _flew_ through the air far above the ground. The human body could do almost anything with enough of the right training. Dick honestly thought he was the luckiest boy in the world to be born into this family.

It wasn't like that when he went to live in Gotham City. An arrow pierced through the bird's wing and pinned him to the ground. Birds like that flap frantically but never get anywhere.

.

Dick hid in an alleyway and panted. He rested his head and back against the uncomfortable brick wall, and his sore legs were stretched out in front of him. His body was completely worn out - which wasn't easy.

He had run so much he wasn't even sure where he was now... That was a lie. He knew every inch of Gotham City. He lived here too long.

The anger was fading. In its place, it felt like his brain was short-circuiting. He was tired and unsure of what to do next. He had trouble thinking, and he knew on some level that he didn't want to think very much.

He acted on instinct instead. He took his smartphone out of his pocket and disabled the GPS tracking. Then he remembered his guardian was _Batman_ and that probably wouldn't be enough. He took the back cover off the phone and removed the battery and the SIM card. He didn't want Batman to find him. He didn't want to deal with Bruce or Alfred right now. He just didn't.

Dick had a deep-rooted instinct of getting away from everything.

 _Where the hell would I go?!_

Relying on instinct, he decided he wanted to talk to a friend. The problem was Dick didn't have any friends he could talk to. He couldn't tell his classmates about his crime fighting. He couldn't tell his superhero allies about being Bruce Wayne's ward. He couldn't be honest with _anyone_.

If he didn't fix that right now he thought he'd go crazy.

Batman took his secret identity very seriously. It was a cardinal rule that Dick couldn't tell anyone, not even the other sidekicks, who he really was. But at this point Dick _just didn't care_.

He thought about going to Speedy, but then he realized he couldn't. Speedy's parents were dead too, and Dick did not want to deal with that. Bruce and Alfred both lost people. Superman lost his entire planet. _Everyone_ in the superhero business had this problem, Dick realized. Every hero lost someone they cared about. There was _no one_ left.

Except Kid Flash.

It was like a light bulb lit up in Dick's head. The short-circuiting confusion was gone. He understood exactly what to do now: He was going to see Kid Flash.

Kid Flash lived in another state. The light bulb dimmed.

The Justice League had Zeta Beam technology. There was a teleportation machine disguised as a phone booth in Gotham City. If Dick hacked into it with Batman's passwords, he could travel all the way to Central City in mere minutes. That would be against the rules - many different rules - and possibly a few laws.

But Dick decided that he didn't give a shit about anything today... It was such a liberating feeling!

.

He waited outside Wally's school. It wasn't hard to find. Dick had reassembled his phone and did a little looking online, but only for a few minutes at a time. He kept the phone turned off whenever possible. Just for this one day, he didn't want Bruce to interrupt him.

He paced on the sidewalk. He ditched the blazer and tie of his uniform long ago. He was simply dressed in a white button shirt and dark pants, with his hair slicked back like it always was when he was playing the role of Wayne's ward. He left his bag at school. All he had in this city were the contents of his pockets.

The anger and anxiety from before were completely gone, as if deleted by a computer program. In their place, Dick was simply excited about meeting Wally. Not a sort-of meeting from mask to mask, but an actual meeting between real people. He was finally going to make friends with someone, not as Robin, but as himself. Just once, just for today, he would stop being a crime fighter or the nouveau riche and just be _himself_.

He wanted to forget everything. Escape everything. No rules, no secrets, no responsibilities. Just do whatever he felt like.

He could tell Wally about his family. And then...

Dick pushed the thought out of his mind. He'd worry about it later.

The school bell rang. "Finally," Dick groaned. A large crowd of teenagers came out of the school. He enjoyed seeing their diverse outfits - totally different from a private school. He realized he also enjoyed seeing a group of faces he didn't recognize. Another new crowd in a new city. But he ignored most of them and searched for the face he would recognize.

There! A sighting of orange hair. Dick ran over and - Oh, it wasn't Wally. It was some other redhead. Dick turned and looked around the crowd. He saw more red-orange hair, but it was an obvious dye job.

Apparently, in Central City, that hair color wasn't as uncommon as Dick assumed it would be. Maybe that explained how Kid Flash got away with showing it and still keeping his identity secret.

The crowd was starting to disperse. Dick ran back to the sidewalk and spun his head around frantically. Eventually, he saw his target walking away in the distance. Dick quickly ran after him.

Dick ran up and blocked the other boy's path. Wally stopped and blinked in surprise. Dick knew he found the right person this time. He recognized him from his photo. Up close, he could even recognize pieces of Kid Flash's face through the mask: the skin tone, the bone structure. It was definitely him.

"...You're Wally," he said, grinning like an idiot.

"Yeah," he replied with a raised eyebrow.

"You're Wally West," he said excitably. "It's really you."

"Yeah... That's me..." He gripped the strap of his backpack.

"Oh, wow, this is really happening, isn't it? I'm _so_ not supposed to be here. I came on a total impulse. But here I am! We're really meeting, face to face." A new thought occurred to him. "We should commemorate this moment!"

Dick took his smartphone out of his pocket and turned it on. With his free hand he grabbed Wally's shoulder and pulled him close. Wally said, "Hey, what are-"

"Don't worry. We'll laugh about this someday," Dick said. The phone beeped as it took their picture.

He stepped away and checked how the picture came out. Dick's face, cheerfully smiling, next to Wally's face, confused and surprised. A second later Dick very quickly disassembled his phone and stuffed the pieces into his pocket. He looked back up to Wally, _still_ grinning like an idiot.

Wally stared back in puzzlement. "Who are..." He abruptly looked away and started walking. "On second thought, I don't care."

Dick disappointedly watched him walk off. "That's not quite how I planned him to react... Not that I _had_ a plan..."

He caught up and matched Wally's pace. "Aren't you curious how I knew your name?" he asked as they walked.

"Not really. Someone at school told you, right?" Wally said without looking at him. "Pretty much everyone at my school knows about me."

"But I don't go to this school," Dick replied.

"I still don't care," Wally said bluntly.

Dick frowned. "You're meaner than before."

"Before what?"

He wondered if something happened or if this was simply how Wally acted when he wasn't Kid Flash.

Dick blocked his path again and they stopped. "Wally, look at me."

Wally did, but he was still confused. "Why?"

"Don't you recognize me?"

"No. Should I?"

Dick was surprised that Wally hadn't recognized him yet. He assumed that his disguise as Robin wouldn't be good enough if anyone got a close look at his face, like Kid Flash had. It was really just a different hairstyle and a small strip of fabric that blocked his eyes and nothing else. Those little differences were the only thing that hid his secret identity.

He decided to stop hiding it. Dick ran his fingers through his slicked-back hair, pulling the bangs forward in the exact messy arrangement he used as Robin. Then he took dark sunglasses out of his pocket and slipped them over his eyes. The transformation was complete from the neck up.

He smiled at Wally with the same devil-may-care grin he used as the Boy Wonder and said, "You recognize me now?"

"No," Wally said bluntly.

Dick blinked. "What? Really?"

He shrugged. "Sorry."

Dick did not know what to make of that.

"Look closely." He stared at Wally expectantly. "You sure I don't remind you of... anyone special?"

"I don't know. Does it matter?" He stepped around him and walked away.

"Wait, don't go!" Dick ran after him.

Wally talked over his shoulder as he walked. He was exasperated. "Whoever you are, if you've got a point just spit it out. Otherwise I'm leav-"

Wally reached the corner of the sidewalk and collided with someone. It was an older teenager - a college student maybe - holding a paper cup. When Wally knocked into him he dropped the cup on the ground, spilling the drink all over the sidewalk and some of their shoes.

"Hey, watch where you're going, asshole!" the guy shouted.

"I'm sorry." Wally did sound sorry, but not extremely. "It was an accident."

Wally shot Dick a quick glare. Then he turned and resumed walking, but the guy interrupted him. "What?! That's it?!"

Wally stopped and shrugged hesitantly. "I said sorry. What more do you want?"

The guy gestured to the brown stain on the ground. "I want you to pay for that, you prick! That latte cost me four-sixty and I barely got a sip 'cause of you!"

"Yeah, well, no one should spend that much on a latte," Wally said dryly.

"Don't screw with me," he shot back. "You think you can crash into me, make a mess over my shoes, and then just walk away like nothing hap-"

Dick suddenly stepped between them, looked into the guy's face, got rid of his American accent, and said, "Scuzaţi, vorbiţi româneşte?"

(Translation: " _Excuse me, do you speak Romanian?_ ")

The guy stared at him blankly. "...What?"

Dick smiled brightly, and in Romanian he said, " _Good. It would have been awkward if you understood me. But I didn't think you would. A lot of people in this country have never even heard of Romania_."

"Kid, speak English."

" _Which is weird, because they have heard of Transylvania. And Transylvania isn't a real country. It's just a region inside of Romania. But Americans are like, 'oh, Dracula's from Transylvania!' And that's all they know_."

"I don't understand. What is he saying?" The guy looked to Wally for help. But Wally caught on to what was happening, so he just stood there with his best poker face.

Dick nodded and gestured randomly. " _Come to think of it, I've never read Dracula. Never saw the movies either. I don't really know anything about vampires - which is kind of ironic if you knew who my guardian was_."

He leaned down to be eye-level with Dick and spoke loudly and slowly. "I! Don't! Un-der-stand! No! Speak! ...Whatever!"

Dick grabbed his hand and shook it, while grinning widely and nodding eagerly. " _I know you don't speak Romanian. That's the point! I've noticed that English-only speakers get REALLY uncomfortable when someone talks to them in a foreign language. So if I keep babbling long enough, they usually give up and leave me alone_." And then Dick kissed the back of the guy's hand.

He pulled his hand back in alarm. He looked back and forth between Dick and Wally. "Look, forget it, okay? Just... forget it!" And he walked away quickly.

Dick waved at his back cheerfully. " _I told you so!_ "

Dick and Wally were quiet until he was out of sight. They looked at each other. And then they burst out laughing.

"Were you talking gibberish or was that a real language?" Wally asked in between his laughs.

"It was Romanian," Dick answered.

"Never heard of it."

"That's the point." They kept laughing.

"I don't know if I should thank you or not," Wally said with a big smile. "It's your own fault I bumped into that guy in the first place, but... It's been a _while_ since I had a good laugh!"

"Me too, come to think of it," Dick said.

They calmed down and took a few deep breaths.

Dick said to him, "Let's start over." He held out his hand. "Hi, my name's Dick Grayson. Nice to meet you."

He shook it. "Wally."

"Yeah, so, I was running on adrenaline before and not really thinking straight. Long story short: I kind of ran away from home today," he said with a sheepish smile. "I wanted to goof off and have fun around here, but I don't really know this city. Would you mind showing me around a little?"

Wally looked at this weird kid he just met, and shrugged. "Eh, sure. What the hell. What do you want to see?"

"Well, I skipped lunch so I could _really_ use some food right now. You hungry?"

"I'm always hungry."

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 3/28/2017) Mood whiplash. " _We'll laugh about this someday_ " - I have this headcannon that Dick has done that to all his teammates. I thought that before this story, but I decided to shove it in anyway.


	12. Secret Identity

Dick and Wally left the fast food restaurant and walked down the sidewalk. It was a weekday afternoon and there were a lot of people in downtown Central City. Dick's bangs were still down, but his sunglasses were up on his forehead.

"Man, you really were hungry, weren't you?" Wally said. "I've never seen anyone else eat as much as I do... Kinda freaked me out..."

"It was just so good!" Dick replied with a big smile. "Well, not 'good' good. It was greasy, and way too much salt. It's probably gonna make me sick later, but I couldn't stop myself. It's like, it's so bad it's good!"

Wally laughed. "You talk like you've never had fast food before."

"I haven't," he shrugged.

"Really? Never?"

"Not that I remember."

"Where have you been living, outer space?" Wally asked.

Dick rolled his eyes. "Why do they all ask that?"

Wally snickered again. Dick looked at him with a faint smile.

After being stared at for a few moments, Wally raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Dick grinned wider in amusement. "Do you really not recognize my face, Wally?"

"I'm pretty sure I'd remember meeting someone like you," he replied. "Besides, _you're_ the one who was ranting about, 'It's our first meeting! Let's commemorate!'"

"I guess I thought my reputation would precede me. It usually does."

Wally smiled. "Okay, Mister Dick Grayson, who exactly are you?"

One revelation at a time, Dick thought. "I'm Bruce Wayne's ward."

He blinked. "Okay, first question. What's a ward?"

"It means he's my legal guardian."

Wally looked at him with a little sympathy. "You mean like a foster parent?"

He hesitated for a short second, and then Dick said, "My real parents are dead," with calmness that surprised even himself.

"Oh," was all Wally replied with.

Dick waited. Then he looked at Wally with a little surprise. "Aren't you going to tell me how sorry you are? That's what everyone else says."

Wally raised an eyebrow. "Does it really _need_ to be said?"

Dick thought about this. "No, not really."

Wally didn't bother with the copy-and-paste responses like "I'm so sorry" or "that sucks" or "how are you doing?" It was like he understood there was no point in repeating that. Dick liked that about him.

Instead Wally asked, "How did they die? - No, don't answer that. It's none of my business..."

But he answered anyway. "They were murdered."

Wally was silent for several seconds. "Did they ever catch the guy?" he asked gently.

Dick nodded. "Yeah."

"That's not much, but it's _something_ at least."

Dick nodded again.

Wally spoke up. "Okay, next question. Who's Bruce Wayne?"

Dick's eyes widened. "Seriously?!"

Wally looked uncomfortable. "Uh, yeah?"

He really _wasn't_ in Gotham City anymore. "Bruce's famous. He's the head of Wayne Enterprises. You've heard of _that,_ right?"

Wally thought to himself. "Wayne... Oh!" He pointed at Dick. "The rich guy in Gotham City."

Dick smiled and nodded. "Yeah!"

He lowered his hand, suddenly calmer. "And _he's_ your foster dad?"

He nodded again. "Yes."

"...So you're like a millionaire from another state?"

"Uh, yes." Dick still considered it Bruce's money and not his, but close enough.

Wally paused. Finally he asked, "Are you putting me on?"

A few years ago, Dick wouldn't have understood what that meant. But he knew slang now. "No, it's true. Bruce saw what happened to my family. He took me in."

"Uh-huh," Wally said, obviously skeptical. "Okay, if you live in Gotham, what are you doing here? How did you even get here?"

"I... took sort of a special way," Dick answered hesitantly.

"Oh, a 'special way'." Wally rolled his eyes. "Oh, well, that makes perfect sense."

This had never happened to Dick before. Bruce tried to keep Dick out of the media - give him some privacy and a normal life - but there were still a few articles about him. He was especially famous back when the wealthy man-about-town first took him in. Apparently the news never reached Central City.

Wally's disbelief offended him a little. "All right, I'll prove it," Dick said. He took the pieces of his smartphone out of his pockets and started to reassemble them. He fumbled a tiny bit with the SIM card. It wasn't that easy to rush through taking it apart and together over and over. They stood on the sidewalk and Wally watched him with interest.

Once the phone was working Dick searched online. He found and old article and showed it to Wally. The redheaded boy looked closely at the screen. "Bruce Wayne... Witness tragedy... Legal guardian... Dick Grayson..." It had a photo showing Bruce standing next to the nine-year-old child. Dick pushed his bangs up and looked at Wally wide-eyed and expectant. Wally glanced back and forth to the boy in the photo and the preteen in front of him. "Hey, that _is_ you."

Dick took his phone back. "I see you're not _completely_ face-blind," he muttered with annoyance.

"Sorry I didn't believe you." He sounded sincere. "But... Well... It was kind of a wild story. I never met an actual rich person before. You really came all the way from Gotham?"

"That's right, I live in Gotham City." He gave Wally a meaningful look. "Same place Batman and Robin live."

"Yeah, I know where Gotham City is. I'm not stupid."

Dick wasn't a hundred percent convinced. He disassembled the phone again and put it back in his pockets. "Why do you keep taking your phone apart?" Wally asked.

"Cell phones can be tracked," he answered simply. "I don't want anyone to find me right now."

Wally was quiet for a few moments. "Hey, Dick... When you said you were running away... How serious were you?"

Dick thought about it. He shrugged. "I dunno."

"Did something happen between you and Mr. Wayne?"

"No, it's nothing like that. Bruce is great," he said. "I guess I'll go back tonight. I guess I'll _have_ to go back. I just... I just wanted to get away for a little while. I wanted to come here."

"Why here?" Wally asked.

 _To see you_.

But that might sound a little creepy, so instead Dick said, "It's not my first time in Central City, you know. The last time I was here, I met Kid Flash." Dick covered his eyes with his sunglasses and stared directly into Wally's face. "I guess I wanted to see him again."

Wally blinked. "You met Kid Flash?"

Dick nodded, and waited for Wally to recognize him. It was forbidden for Dick to _tell_ Wally that he was Robin. But if Wally happened to figure it out on his own, that would be different.

"Huh. I've lived here since before Kid Flash showed up and I've never seen him," he said casually. "I have met the Flash though. A few times, in fact. He's much cooler," he added with a grin.

"Don't say that," Dick frowned. "Kid Flash is really cool too. Although he did seem sort of... _down on himself_." He leaned towards Wally and spoke with extra emphasis.

"I have both their autographs," Wally mentioned proudly.

Dick stared. "...What?"

"I never met Kid Flash but a friend from school did," he explained. "He got an extra autograph for me."

He kept staring. "You heard me say that I _met_ Kid Flash, right? I'm a boy from _Gotham City_ who spoke to Kid Flash."

"It's not a competition," he said defensively.

Dick. Couldn't. Believe it.

He turned and walked away. "Follow me."

Wally raised his eyebrow, but did as he was told. Dick led him down an alleyway. The two boys walked under a fire escape, away from anyone who could overhear them. "Are you mad?" Wally asked.

Dick turned back to face him. "Okay, it was funny at first, but now I'm sick of it. Joke's over."

"What joke?"

"Look at me!"

"What? What did I say?!"

Dick took off his sunglasses. He looked Wally in the eyes and decided to stop dropping hints. He just came right out and said it. "I'm Robin."

Wally still looked confused. "Is that some sort of nickname?"

Dick's eyes bugged out. "SERIOUSLY?!"

"Wha-"

He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Oh, for crying out loud! What do I have to do?! Do I have to shine the freaking Bat-Signal in your face before you figure it out?!"

"What are you talking-"

"Stop playing dumb!" Dick pleaded. "If this is about hiding your identity, don't bother! I know you're Kid Flash!"

Finally, a reaction. Wally suddenly looked worried instead of confused - the worry that his secret was out.

But it was only for a brief moment. After that Wally had a very genuine look of surprise and he cried out, "Are you _high_?!"

"What?!"

Wally put his hands on his head. "Oh my God, you are, aren't you? That's why you keep following me around," he said in realization. He held out his hands in a stay-back motion. "Dude, whatever you're offering, I don't want any!"

"I am not high! I'm Robin the Boy Wonder! You know? Batman's sidekick?!"

He shook his head. "I _really_ don't want that hard stuff."

"Oh, for the love of... We've met before! Lots of times!" Dick said desperately. "In Gotham City, Batman and I were fighting False Face, and he shot at me, and then you raced by and caught the bullet. And the next time we met, we went to Central City. We met on a rooftop and I shook your hand. And you told me you can't vibrate through walls 'cause then you get a nosebleed. We fought the Royal Flush Gang. And there was another adventure with Green Arrow and Speedy and all of us together. We fought - y'know, that guy who could make copies of himself. Ugh, what was his name?"

"Multiplex," Wally blurted out.

Dick pointed a finger at him. "See! You do remember!"

Wally stared. "You're really Robin? _That_ Robin?"

"DUH!" he shouted. "How can you _not_ realize what it means when a black-haired Caucasian boy from Gotham who met Kid Flash walks up to you and tells you he's _Robin_?! 'Is that some sort of nickname?' How many Robins do you think there are in Gotham City?!"

"I dunno about Gotham, but there are at least two people in my school actually named Robin," he replied casually.

He blinked in surprise. "Really?"

Wally shrugged one shoulder. "Well, they're both girls. But still."

They stared at each other for another moment. And then they both started snickering at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

"Y-You know, I totally knew it was you the whole time," Wally said. "I was just playing dumb."

"Oh, yeah, right! I was tearing my hair out waiting for you to figure it out," Dick shot back. "'Fastest Boy Alive,' my butt!"

"Okay, fine! I'm dense! Sue me," he threw his hands up. "We can't _all_ be detectives. And what're you doing telling me your identity anyway? Isn't that against the rules?"

"Eh," he waved it off. "Stopped caring. Ran away. Long story."

Wally's eyes suddenly widened and he took a sharp breath. "Oh, wait a minute." He spun his head around the alley, double-checking that they were alone. "Oh my gosh." He leaned close to Dick and hissed quietly with excitement. "If you're Robin, that means your foster dad is Batman! Batman is _Bruce Wayne_!"

Dick shook his head. "Actually, no. He's not."

Wally looked confused again. "Really?"

"We just want people to think he is. Batman is actually our butler, Alfred."

"Your _butler_?"

Dick kept a perfectly straight face as he explained. "Yeah, see, we set it up like that. This way if someone finds out who _I_ am, they'll just assume Bruce is Batman, but he's not. Bruce is in on it, though. He provides the funding for our gadgets and helps us out whenever he can, but he's just technical support. Batman plays the role of our butler so he can stay out of the public eye and do the superhero stuff completely unnoticed."

Wally stared at him. "So Bruce Wayne is just a decoy, and the real Batman pretends to be his butler as part of his cover?" His eyes bugged out. "That's _brilliant_!"

Dick laughed loudly. He gripped his sides and fell to the ground.

"What?" Wally asked, confused again.

The boy continued laughing, but held it in just long enough to say, "Good for you, Alfred! Someone actually fell for it! HAHAHAHA!"

He kept like that for a while, literally ROTF. It's a wonder people didn't come into the alley to investigate. Wally looked down at him, unamused.

"It wasn't that funny."

"Yes, it was!"

.

A little bit later, they stood on the roof of a tall building. Wally spoke into his cell phone.

"Sorry I didn't call, mom. I didn't think of it... Just 'cause I don't come straight home after school, that's no reason to worry... No, I'm not doing _that_... Well, call Uncle Barry if you don't believe me... I made a new friend. We're hanging out downtown... You know, just hanging out. He wanted to see the sights..." He lowered his voice. " _Of course_ I brought them with me." He spoke normally again. "Yeah - Yeah, okay - Okay, I will. Bye."

He hung up and turned back to Dick. "Sorry 'bout the interruption. Back on topic... You were born in a circus? Like a real, actual, circus?"

Dick nodded. "Uh-huh. Haly's International Traveling Circus. My family were the Flying Graysons. That's how I learned all my moves." He did a somersault to demonstrate. "Batman taught me the fighting. But the acrobatic stuff - that was _all_ my parents."

Wally looked up with a big smile. "Okay, let me wrap my head around this." He gestured towards the other boy. "Billionaire heir... _AND_ superhero... _AND_ circus performer! Any one of those by themselves would be insanely cool, but all three at once? That just - That just blows my mind!"

Dick shook his head, still smiling, but perhaps a little sadly. "It's not all at once. I left the circus, remember?"

"What's amazing is that you were there at all."

" _You_ have super speed," Dick mentioned. "That's pretty amazing."

"You're right," Wally was brimming with pride. "It is."

"Your parents know you're Kid Flash, right?" Dick asked.

"Yeah," Wally nodded. "Speaking of which - and I probably should have asked this right away - how did you know I'm Kid Flash? It was my hair, wasn't it?"

"Actually, it was your uncle. I already figured out the Flash's secret identity, so when Kid Flash appeared, I figured it was probably someone close to him. Looked online. Found out he had a nephew."

"So you already knew my secret identity the first time we met," he realized.

"Yes," Dick admitted.

A pause. Wally seemed a little uncomfortable.

"Is that okay?" Dick asked.

"Y-Yeah," he said quickly. "Yeah, that's fine."

Dick smiled. "Meanwhile, I actually _told_ you I was Robin, and you still couldn't figure it out."

"Are you ever gonna let that go?" Wally shot back. "Look at it from my point of view. A weird kid pops out of nowhere and says he's Batman's sidekick and I'm supposed to just take his word for it? Just 'cause he looks a little bit similar?"

"Okay," Dick nodded. "But still."

"Let's move on." Wally quickly changed the subject. "Why are you here again? You never really explained that."

"I wanted to see you," Dick answered bluntly.

"Okay... Why?"

"To talk."

"About what?"

"Anything!" Dick sat down cross-legged and looked at his hands. "I can't tell the kids at school I'm Robin. I can't tell the other sidekicks I'm Dick Grayson. I can't be completely honest with anyone. And I'm always worried I'll let something slip, so lately I just don't talk at all. And I'm sick of bottling everything up."

Wally walked over and sat down next to him. "Things like what?"

"Like... I'm worried about who the real me is."

Wally looked at him blankly. "I don't know what that means."

"Sure you do," Dick replied. "All superheroes with secret identities do. When you're at school, you're Wally West. And when you're on patrol, you're Kid Flash. You take turns playing two different roles. Haven't you ever worried about which one is the _real_ you?"

"They're _both_ the real me," Wally answered. "I just enjoy being Kid Flash more." He turned his head away. "I don't really like myself when I'm Wally West... but he's still me."

"Well, with me it's the complete opposite," Dick said. "I'm Bruce Wayne's ward and I'm Robin, and I feel like _neither_ of them is the real me. The real me disappeared when my family died."

As the two boys sat side by side, Dick Grayson talked about himself, and Wally West listened with interest. He talked about his life in the circus. And he talked about the night Tony Zucco murdered his family.

"My whole life changed that night. That's all it took. Just one night, and my..." His voice cracked and trailed off.

Wally gently spoke up. "You don't have to say this if it's hard-"

"No, I want to say this!" Dick replied quickly. "I _need_ to say it! It's what I came here for... My family's gone, Wally. That night, my mom and dad died. My aunt and cousin died. And my uncle... he..."

 _He died._

"...He survived, but..."

 _He died._

"...He was paralyzed. He couldn't move..."

 _Maybe there wasn't much difference._

"...And sometimes, I feel like _I'm_ dead too. This is just a little piece of me that was left behind... I don't know how to stop feeling like that."

Wally and Dick stared at the cityscape. It was late November, and it was already starting to get dark. The wind blew through their hair.

"Okay then. That's a lot to take in..." Wally said. He turned his head to look at Dick. "But why are you telling me this? What _exactly_ made you come see me?"

Dick didn't reply right away. He stood up, walked to the edge of the roof, and looked over at the ground below.

"It's a long story."

He looked back at Wally. "Do you have time to listen?"

"Absolutely," Wally answered.

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (4/7/2017) The part where Dick convinces Wally that Alfred's Batman - " _Good for you Alfred, someone actually fell for it!_ " - This is a reference to the cartoon "Static Shock" on an episode that crossed over with Batman.

Static (Wakes up in Batcave; Alfred is tending to his wounds): "Who are you?!"  
Alfred (Deadpan): "Batman."  
Static (Skeptical): "...I don't think so."  
Alfred (Smiling): "Just once, I'd like someone to believe that."

The story will be wrapping up soon. Now that I've explained how Dick and Wally got here, we're heading for the big climax.


	13. Save

It was a long story, and Dick told it to Wally.

He rambled about everything he could think of: Long nights at the manor; School and classmates; Confronting criminals as Robin; Revisiting his old life at the circus; Learning about Kid Flash.

Culture shock. Loneliness.

And finally, the death of his last remaining relative...

It was dark by now. Dick sat on the ground with red eyes. Wally sat in front of him and listened to everything.

"I had so many chances to see my uncle. But I didn't go because I didn't _want_ to see him. I thought it'd be too uncomfortable... Now I _really really_ want to see him. But I have no chances left. I wasted all that time and I can _never_ make it up to him now..." He was crying. "I'm sorry Uncle Rick..."

"Dick..." Wally breathed.

"I lost my family _again_ , Wally," Dick groaned. "The worst day of my life was when I lost my family and it happened _again_... It's real now. They're all gone."

He stood up and paced. "I feel like I'm paralyzed just like Uncle Rick was. I wake up, day after day, and it's always the same. What have I done these last three years? I'm not moving to new places. I'm not doing new things. And I'm _not_ getting better! I'm just... _stuck_ here. The first day something different happens, and it's a rerun of the worst day of my life...!"

"You should talk to Mr. Wayne about this," Wally said. "Or Speedy."

"Bruce and Speedy both lost their parents," Dick stopped walking and looked at Wally. "I'm talking to you because you're one of the _only_ people I know who never had anyone die on him."

"Doesn't that make me the _last_ person you should be talking to?" Wally asked. "It'd be better if you talk to someone who understands what you're going through."

"I don't want someone who 'understands'!" he yelled. "I want someone who's still naïve enough to tell me I'll get over it and that everything will be all right again!"

Wally stared at him, but he couldn't say anything.

Dick turned away and walked to the edge of the roof again. He stared at the ground below. "But it won't, will it? I'll never see my family again for the rest of my life... I'll never go back to the way things were... I'll never get a chance to apologize to Uncle Rick... For the _rest_ of my _life_..."

Wally watched Dick's back as Dick watched the ground. He had been doing that several times throughout the evening. It was Dick's idea to come up to the roof in the first place.

Wally suddenly realized something horrible.

With a look of panic on his face, Wally stood up and took a step to the other boy. "Dick?" he said worriedly. "What are you-"

Dick spun back towards Wally. "I don't want to die," he said quickly. "I _really_ don't want to die. I swear I don't. I don't. It's not like that. It's just..." He glanced away. "Sometimes, when it's _really_ bad... I start to think..." Dick looked Wally in the eyes and shrugged helplessly. "What else is there...?"

Wally couldn't say anything.

"I want to go _home_ , Wally," Dick said with a cracking voice. "But I can't. My home's not in the circus anymore. It's not anywhere... I'm just like my uncle. Just waiting for the end... But I..."

He shuddered. He sniffed back his tears. And then Dick Grayson finally stopped stalling and did the thing he meant to do all along. It made him feel more vulnerable than ever, and he didn't like that, but he laid his heart bare. He told Wally the true, ultimate reason he came to see him.

"Wally... _I need help_..."

They stared at each other. Wally had never been in a situation remotely like this before. He watched this crying child in front of him, and he wished he knew what to say. Eventually, he stopped caring if they were the right words or not and simply started talking.

"I'm a... I have..." He got nervous, took a breath, and started over. "There are people with handicaps, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Dick said. "My uncle was paralyzed."

"What I mean is... I've been thinking about this a lot, actually..." He struggled to make the words come out the way they sounded in his head. "Superheroes are super compared to regular people, because they have special powers. And I thought, in that case, regular people are super compared to the handicapped ones, because they can do things that are harder for the others. Maybe a 'superpower' is just being able to do something that someone else can't. And if that's true... Well, lately I've been thinking, handicapped people have powers too. Because you know what...? Being alive is a superpower."

Dick watched him in curiosity.

Wally looked him the eyes and said, "When you're alive, you can do all sorts of things that the people who are gone can't. Even if it feels like nothing. Even if it's just... being stuck somewhere and waiting for something good to happen. That's better than _nothing_ , isn't it?"

"But... What if there really is an afterlife?" Dick asked. "What if they're there, waiting for me?"

"Let them wait," Wally shot back. "They'll still be there when you're ninety-something and on your deathbed. There are people _here_ waiting for you."

He didn't argue.

"You have lots of time, Dick. That's what life is, you know," he added eagerly. "People talk about the 'Meaning of Life' like it's some great cosmic mystery. It's no mystery! Life is just _time_. Every day is a little more time to do something you didn't do before. Or to think of something you never thought of before. Or to just _wait_ for a chance to make things better. You have more things to wait for than just the end. Maybe one day - who knows - maybe there'll be a miracle and you _really will_ get over it and make everything all right again. Don't throw all that time away."

"Things never got better for my uncle," Dick said bitterly. "He finally got a chance to make things better and it killed him."

Wally hesitated. Then he nodded. "Yeah, that sucked. But do you really think it would have been _better_ if he had no time at all?"

That was the question Dick was always afraid of asking.

"Your uncle could still think and talk, right? He could remember the rest of your family... keep their memory alive in the world." Wally shook his head. " _I_ don't think those three years were for nothing. Maybe for a little, but not nothing."

Dick took a deep breath. "You're right... I know you're right, in my head. I know I should keep going... It's just _hard_ sometimes."

Dick turned away, but he didn't look at the ground. He looked at the lights of the cityscape. Wally walked up beside him and followed his gaze.

"All my life I wanted to be a hero like the Flash," Wally said. "I wanted to save people. So if it ever gets too hard for you... If you ever feel like you need a reason to keep going... Tell yourself that somewhere out there is some dumb wannabe-hero who really wants you to live..." He glanced over at him. "...And I'll save you as many times as it takes."

Dick looked up at Wally, and then hugged him.

Kid Flash once raced by and stopped a bullet meant for Robin. And that was nothing compared to those simple words Wally gave Dick now.

"I'll remember," Dick whispered. "I'll remember... everything."

Dick came here for help. He leaped, and a net appeared.

Eventually they pulled away. Dick mumbled, "I should probably go back to Gotham City now, before Bruce worries any more."

"Can you get there on your own?" Wally asked.

"Yeah, I'll just hack the Zeta Beam again." He got out his phone and reassembled it one last time. "But before I go... Now that we're friends who actually _know_ who the other is... Can I have your phone number?"

He took out his own cell phone. "Of course."

They exchanged numbers. Email addresses too. They promised to keep in touch as long-distance friends.

Dick felt like Wally was the first _real_ friend he had made since leaving the circus, and possibly before then too.

"Thank you..."

As the two boys climbed down the fire escape, Wally, who never went too long without lightening the mood, said, "Hey Dick? Don't think this changes anything. I'm still gonna get back at you someday for laughing at me so much."

He smiled. "I'll give Alfred your very best regards."

.

In Gotham City, a light appeared inside an abandoned phone booth. A few moments later Dick stepped outside. He noticed that the blazer of his uniform wasn't where he left it. Taken by a homeless person, possibly. It was late, and had gotten cold. He shivered a little bit inside his thin button shirt, and walked out of the alley.

To his surprise, a familiar limousine was pulled up to the curb. Bruce and Alfred were waiting for him, the former holding his blazer.

Dick walked up to him, and he handed him the blazer. "You knew where I was...?"

Bruce looked down at him with a gentle expression. "I'm a detective and your guardian. I have no excuse for _not_ knowing exactly where you are."

It was safe to assume he realized Dick was talking to Wally, telling him their secrets. As he put on the jacket, Dick asked, "Then how come you didn't try to stop me?"

Just as gently, Bruce answered, "Because I knew you were in _exactly_ the place you needed to be today."

Dick stared at him. Emotionally exhausted as he was, he almost felt like crying again. He hugged Bruce instead. "I'm sorry..."

"It's fine." Bruce rubbed the boy's head. Alfred walked over and hugged them gently as well.

With a tiny bit of resignation, Dick said, "Let's go home," and he meant Wayne Manor.

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : (Posted 4/9/2017) All that's left is the epilogue.


	14. Happiness

_Pasăre mic..._

 _We are so proud of you..._

 _Please, never forget about the people you have saved..._

 _And please imagine yourself... being happy in the future._

Dick woke up slowly. It was the morning after he spoke with Wally. On his bedside table, his CD player was still making the quiet sound of rainfall he fell asleep to.

He smiled, because he had a vague memory of having a nice dream.

.

Soon enough, it was December 1st again. Dick's thirteenth birthday.

A certain redheaded boy stood outside the large entrance of Wayne Manor. The double doors opened, and Alfred stepped out to greet him. "Can I help you?" There was the faint sound of several people talking from somewhere inside the mansion.

"Uh, hi," he said. He was holding a wrapped present. "I'm Wally West. Dick's friend... Is he home?"

"One moment, please. I'll get him for you."

Wally pointed a finger. "You're Alfred, right?"

"Yes," he answered simply.

Wally looked at this thin, balding man. "I'm starting to see why it was so funny..."

"Hm?"

"Uh, never mind!"

With one eyebrow suspiciously raised, Alfred disappeared inside the mansion. Wally stayed outside, coming to grips with knowing somebody who lived in an honest-to-goodness _mansion_.

Only a few seconds later Dick came out the doors. Hair slicked back. No sunglasses. His clothes were casual this time, though not cheap-looking. Dick looked surprised to see Wally, but not unhappy. "Hi." He closed the door behind him.

"Hey," Wally replied. "Sorry, I probably should have called first. I just came by to give you this." He handed Dick a rectangular package wrapped in newspaper comics. "Happy Birthday."

Dick nodded and smiled. "Thanks."

Wally tilted his head towards the door. "Sounds crowded inside. Were you having a party?"

"Y-Yeah. I asked a few kids from school to come over. I'm trying to come out of my shell more." He looked uncomfortable. "Look, sorry. I don't wanna be rude. I _would_ invite you inside. It's just... I'm not sure how to explain to them how I know you."

Wally waved his hand. "No, no. That's fine. I totally get it. I can't stay long anyway. I told my parents I was only dropping off your birthday present, and I then I'd run straight home. And considering the _last time_ I snuck away to Gotham City, it took a while to convince them to let me do that much." He added, "I didn't say anything about your secret identity, of course. That's between us."

"Thanks."

"We, uh, we haven't really spoken much since that day." Wally looked at him with a little concern. "How are you doing? I mean... _really_? Are you okay?"

Dick took a deep breath. "Today is my first birthday as the last surviving Grayson. That got me really down... But I was better before that." He thought about it, and confidently said, "I'm gonna get better again."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. After all," he smiled, "being alive is my superpower."

"That's good," Wally said with relief. "So how's the party going? Fun?"

Dick considered it. "It's... uh... wild," he said with another smile.

"How wild?"

"Well, Maggie... something, I'm still working on memorizing everyone's names... she accidentally threw a Wii remote into an expensive TV screen, so now she's hiding from Bruce. Tyson Bailey and Luke-something were wrestling a little and knocked down a decorative suit of armor. George Jackson touched Barbara Gordon's chest, not really by accident. Barbara Gordon shoved George Jackson face-first into the cake, also not really by accident. And Travis Nie announced that he's gay." He rolled his eyes. "And _yes_ , I know what that word means."

"Well, it's no three-ring circus, but it sounds close," Wally said.

Dick laughed.

Wally pointed to the present. "You gonna open that?"

Dick tore open the wrapping. Inside was a book: _The Blue Bird_ by Maurice Maeterlinck.

"Maeterlinck's Blue Bird of Happiness," he muttered.

"Here's the thing," Wally spoke up. "I had _no idea_ what to get you for your birthday. I mean, what do you get a kid who's rich enough to buy whatever he wants? But then I happened to see this in a book store and I thought, he likes birds, he likes foreign fairy tales, so..." He shrugged.

"Technically, it's not a fairy tale. It's a play," Dick said.

Wally's shoulders drooped. "You've already read it, haven't you?"

"No, but my dad did. I always meant to look it up myself one day. He said it's a story about two poor kids who go on a journey to find a magical bird that makes people happy. But then they realize that they never needed to go on any long journey. Happiness was right next to them all along." Dick looked up at Wally and smiled. "Happiness isn't something you find... It's something you make."

Wally smiled back at him.

"Thanks for this," he held up the book. "And thanks again for what you did that day."

He shrugged modestly. "Eh, I didn't do that much."

"Yes, you did," Dick said with a casual smile. "And if there's any way I can pay you back... No pressure, but you can tell me anything, Wally. If there's ever something bothering you, even if you're worried it's embarrassing or whatever, I won't think any less of you."

Wally nodded. "I'll keep that in mind. And you can call me anytime, not just when something's bothering you. We're friends now."

He grinned. "Well, you get back to your party. I'm gonna run home. My parents get antsy if I hide in another state for too long."

"Yeah, but that's 'normal' for kids like us," Dick replied with a knowing smile. "I'll call you later, Wally."

"Happy Birthday, Dick." And with that, he whooshed out of sight.

Dick looked down at his new book and flipped through the pages. "Being alive is a superpower," he muttered.

 _Maybe I'll write to Mr. Haly today... Make sure he knows that I forgive him._

A nest of birds sang in the tree in the yard. Dick watched them fly away into the sky.

This was the story of how Richard "Dick" Grayson survived the worst day of his life - twice. And he continued to live on in this world.

"God's beautiful world," he said.

FIN

.

 _ **Author's Notes**_ : This is the fastest I've ever written a fanfiction (not counting oneshots). It became much longer than I thought it would be. And I didn't focus on Dick's culture shock as much as I originally intended to. But thankfully, the climax chapter where Wally saves Dick turned out pretty much exactly as I pictured it when I first started this story. I'm satisfied with the results.

I try to give credit where it's due. As I said before, I first started writing this after watching the movie, "The Space Between Us." I took equal inspiration from "A Day in the Death," which is an episode of the TV show "Torchwood." (Be warned: that show's meant for mature audiences.) And also, a lot of "Doctor Who," particularly the episode "The Husbands of River Song" prompted Wally to be clueless about Dick's identity.

I'm grateful to all the people who had such nice things to say about this story. I hope you enjoyed this final chapter.


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